


Then

by oviparous



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Character Death, Friendship, M/M, Romance, Science Fiction, Supernatural Elements, Time Travel, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:03:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8451025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oviparous/pseuds/oviparous
Summary: To forensics specialist Ohno Satoshi, the past is as much a place as it is a time, and it’s the only place where Nino exists.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Updated version (fixed errors), slightly different from the [original](http://je-trick-or-fic.livejournal.com/21980.html). Originally written for Livejournal's je_trick_or_fic Prompt #7 (Ohno moves into an apartment that’s haunted by Nino’s ghost). Contains descriptions of terror, and death (Nino's). Afterword appended to Part 4.

Property in the reclaimed part of the coast is newer, the neighbourhoods trendier. Named Kujukuri New Town, it’s popular with transplants to the city: mostly hipster professionals and millennial DINKs. Ohno wants to rent the apartment that’s in the thriving, urban heart of the district, but balks at the quote the real estate agent is giving him. With his civil servant salary he’ll still be able to afford it, but it’s twice the amount he’s paying for his current apartment. He asks if the agent can offer him a better deal, or show him a place not too far away from the area.

The agent, Inoo, takes him to a listing a 10-minute drive away. The address is tiresomely long— _Tanaka-araoi Higashi San-chome_ —but the greenery and open spaces make a favourable impression on Ohno, reminding him of many a happy hour spent at the park during his childhood.

Although the beach is close by—Inoo sounds apologetic as he says this—he assures Ohno it’s under round-the-clock governmental surveillance so security is pretty much airtight.

Ohno tells Inoo that he’s not bothered by how close the beach is.

Inoo informs him of the 30-minute walk from the train station. There are also bus and monorail services providing access to the city centre. Ohno gets out of the car, studies the route to the station and notes the row of cherry blossom trees bearing over the pavement.

It’s scoring a lot of brownie points, Ohno admits. They’ll be lovely to bike under in a couple of weeks when they bloom.

The apartment the agent shows him is on the first floor, which he isn’t too crazy about, but it’s the unit in the corner—a nice compromise, Ohno thinks.

When he enters, his heart takes a leap at how large the entryway is. He likes it so far and more so when he finds out supermarkets, schools and the post office are all within walking distance.

Ohno paces the hallway before entering the living room. Inoo follows.

“How much is the rent?” asks Ohno.

“Fifty-eight thousand a month, fifty-three if you’re not using the parking space.” Inoo pauses, noting Ohno’s delighted surprise. “Tanaka-araoi Higashi was one of the first estates to be built under the Chiba Restoration Project so it’s not as new as the one you saw just now. The design is a bit dated too.” Inoo rubs the wallpaper for emphasis.

Ohno shrugs. “It _is_ big, though,” he says agreeably, prompting a smile from Inoo.

Ohno spends the next few minutes exploring the apartment. It has two bedrooms, a large living room, a dining area, a kitchen, standard unit bath. It’s south-facing and natural light comes in adequately from all sides.

Ohno says he’ll take it.

***

Ohno moves in on a Thursday.

The first thing he does is to fix up his sound system. He plants speakers in several corners of the apartment, syncs them with the wireless environment and powers up his music player. He grins, satisfied, when Matsuyama Chiharu’s soulful voice fills all the rooms.

Ohno isn’t one of those trendy hipsters who makes nostalgia their thing. He’s just naturally drawn to the past. It’s not that strange that his favourite music comes from the late ‘70s.

Ohno moves on to his next task. He enters the room he designates as his craft space and starts unpacking his art supplies, knowing he’ll want to use them soon.

While music is something he appreciates passively, art is something he actively creates. He likes to think that art gives him some balance, some peace. He does have a demanding job.

Ohno opens box after box, sometimes humming along to the music, storing his pencils and brushes into drawers, arranging sketchbooks between bookends on his work desk.

He’s starving by the time he’s finished but decides to postpone dinner. He wants to take the movers’ plastic wrap off all his furniture and run the vacuum cleaner first. He’s about to head to the living room when he stops, stands very still.

Then he forgets what happens.

***

“I knew we should’ve helped you move,” says Sho the next morning as Ohno tries not to nod off in his seat. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

“I don’t know. And it’s not the move,” Ohno manages to mumble.

He doesn’t tell Sho about the blackout or the drawing he found on his desk in the morning. It sounds unbelievable, and Sho tends to get quite concerned—Ohno doesn’t want to be fussed over for this.

“Infinite snooze button not working?” Jun teases.

Ohno yawns. “I thought I told you the story about Dragon Ball Kid—”

“Inspector, incoming,” interrupts Sho as he gets to his feet. Ohno and Jun follow suit.

The room stands at attention as Chief Inspector Kimura enters the meeting room, and after a greeting and a collective salute, the meeting commences.

They’re working on a complicated case—a week ago, an elderly man turned himself in for having a hand in the murder plot of a tycoon that took place 16 years ago. He’d been the gardener for the rich family, and confessed that the wife of the tycoon had paid him to keep mum about a plot to have the tycoon killed so the family could benefit from his life insurance.

The date of the murder coincided with the date of the attempted invasion by the aliens, and the family had covered their crime with the attack, had everyone think the tycoon died in the chaos.

“We’ve tracked down the entire household, including the domestic staff who’d worked for the family sixteen years ago. Every single one of these twelve people survived the attack because they hadn’t been in the mansion when the aliens arrived.” Kimura pauses to look at the room. “That’s unusual.”

Kimura gives a flick of his wrist and the projection changes. “Team A will head out and collect the statements of all the twelve people who weren’t in the mansion that day. Team B, find out if Kataumi Yoshihiko had indeed been murdered, and if Shiraishi Tooru is speaking the truth. That’s all, if there aren’t any questions.”

“Yes, Sir,” the officers reply, and Jun catches Ohno’s eye.

Team B’s going to have some time travelling to do.

***

“Oh-chan. How much time do we have?” Jun asks as they land in 2017. They’re heading to the mansion which Kataumi Yoshihiko owned, going to try and see if they can witness the crime.

“Sixty-one minutes.” Ohno checks his adrenaline levels. “I can push myself to seventy-five but beyond that I’ll probably start haemorrhaging somewhere.”

“Okay. Are we in ghost mode?” asks Jun, as he touches the wall of the alley they’re in. His hand passes through.

“You are, but I’m still doing Sho-chan,” Ohno says as he channels some of his energy into Sho.

“‘Rendering’,” Sho corrects, testing out his intangibility like how Jun did. “We’re not having sex on the job.”

Ohno chuckles. “You and your smart mouth. I’m a year older than you, don’t forget that.”

Bright lights flash overhead, prompting them to look up at the sky, and from the slit between the buildings they see the fireworks, hear every crackle and boom.

“Oh, yeah… There was a festival that day,” says Jun.

Sho calls up a model of the house on his projection module, spins it towards Jun. Jun’s expression turns serious as he studies it while checking his watch.

“The local time is 8:02 PM. The attack will happen at 8:43. According to Shiraishi, each floor of the mansion takes twenty minutes to cover, and that’s if we don’t check every nook and cranny. There are two floors, so we’re going to head in, split up, find Kataumi, and regroup at the main staircase.

“Sho-kun will take the top floor, I’ll take the bottom. Oh-chan, you circle the mansion on your flight module, check out the gardens, the exterior. If you don’t find anything before we’re done, park yourself somewhere and concentrate on keeping us concealed. It’s a pretty dangerous time, we don’t know what’ll happen even though we can’t get hurt.”

“Got it.”

“We’re going to cut this as close as possible because we can only travel backwards, so if by 8:43 we still don’t find Kataumi, we regroup and take it from there,” Jun goes on.

“What if we find him and he’s alive?” asks Sho.

“Then Shiraishi wasn’t telling the truth, Kataumi being left alone in the mansion was sheer coincidence, and we stay to verify the time and cause of death.”

Jun is looking grim, and Ohno knows he too doesn’t like the idea of being around when the aliens disembark. It’s not that they’ll die—things will pass right through them unless Ohno turns off the concealment—but it’s more of what they’ll witness.

“If we find Kataumi and he’s dead, we meet up wherever he is and warp back in thirty-minute intervals until we can determine when he was last alive. Oh-chan, if we’re left with, say, twenty minutes on seventy per cent of your current energy levels, how many intervals can we go back for without showing?”

“It’s just an estimate, but I guess I can take you back about six intervals, five if I want to be on the safe side.”

“Got it.” Jun sets his jaw. “Ready?”

“Yup.” Sho reduces the the projection module so its small enough to snap onto his belt.

All of them fix their night vision goggles over their face before moving out of the alley, skirting a couple of mom-and-pop stores before reaching the main entrance of the sprawling mansion.

Ohno checks the transmitter pinned on the lapel of his suit, makes sure the light is on. He fixes the bud in his ear and looks at Jun.

Jun nods at him. “We’ll be on comms.”

Jun and Sho head towards the house as Ohno activates his flight module and levitates off the ground. He tries to slow down his breathing as he glides west, conserving his energy, monitoring the strength of the invisible bonds that tether him to his partners.

By sharing with them his ability to be imperceptible while in the past, Ohno makes sure the team doesn’t tamper with history, and it also keeps them out of harm’s way. If he loses focus and the other two materialise into flesh and blood, it’s on him.

Ohno finishes one area of the garden, skims close to the ground to move on to the next. He knows he’s got the least tedious job tonight (well, to _day_ , if they were talking about time in the present).

It doesn’t matter, though. He’s been at this long enough to know that he’s contributing a lot more than he gives himself credit for.

He’s a Special Forensics Officer, a role in the criminal investigative division created just for him—he brings police officers back in time to observe events and gather information so they can corroborate the evidence uncovered in the present.

He isn’t the only one to have such a dedicated position in Togane’s police department. Almost every Prior working for any governmental organisation have jobs tailored to their abilities.

It didn’t use to be like this. Things were different a long time ago. Ohno remembers a childhood of ‘health checkups’ that he wasn’t to tell his friends about, where he’d go to hospitals and get his mouth swabbed, his fingertips pricked into oblivion. Ohno used to imagine that somewhere in his hometown was a whole library of his DNA.

It was around this time that he learnt the word that was whispered around him wasn’t ‘plier’ (he wondered for months why people were referring to him as a hand tool) but ‘Prior’—short for _homo prior_ , the kind of human he was, a doctor explained. (Ohno still isn’t exactly sure of the etymology, but he’s heard that the word ‘prior’ is used because they were thought to have evolved first.)

The tests revealed to his parents what to expect: Ohno was a time manipulator, they shouldn’t panic if they find him missing from his bed, there were mentors with similar powers who could teach him how to use his powers via online correspondence, a hotline they could call if he destroyed their lives.

But Ohno loved his parents. Even if Ohno gave them any trouble, he’d kept his powers out of it. He was also never tempted to abuse his time-travelling abilities after hearing real horror stories from his mentors, like the infamous Dragon Ball Kid: a teenager who, like Ohno, could travel backwards in time.

The teen had stayed up all night reading Dragon Ball. When he was done he turned back the clock to his bedtime, thinking he could still get a full night’s sleep, but ended up with two versions of himself in the same house.

The logical thing to do would be to snap back to the present and try to get through the school day with no sleep, but for some reason the kid thought as long as his past self died, his future self could take his place in the past. He managed to convince his past self to let him kill it—then he ceased to exist, and his past self was found dead.

Ohno found that adequate in discouraging him from messing with the space-time continuum.

When he turned 11 a different Prior adult visited his home every month to share stories about their childhood in a far less tolerant society. They often gave him tips on how to cope with loneliness.

That was when Ohno realised that being a Prior was something he had to hide.

Ohno didn’t mind. He certainly didn’t want to brag to his classmates about how he could watch cartoons that he’d missed the previous day because he was at cram school (he was careful not to meet his past self). This kind of envy-mongering would get you bullied, Ohno was smart enough to figure that out.

Then in 2017 the aliens came, and Priors, with their enhanced abilities, played a significant role in helping to fend them off.

After that, the homo sapiens became very kind and inclusive. It wasn’t weird to be a Prior anymore.

Ohno was 15 then, disinterested in current affairs, living hundreds of kilometres away from Chiba—he knew something huge and horrible had happened, but something good had come out of it. He just took it as it came, took it all for granted, didn’t understand the gravity and cost of his new status. Priors were now sought after across various industries because they had a unique selling point that 80 per cent of the population didn’t have.

Ohno was too young to see beyond that. What he saw was newfound job security, and the ability to provide for his parents in their old age.

It was only in his third year of high school, when he watched a government-commissioned documentary about the Battle of Kujukuri, that something inside him changed. There was footage from the battle they hadn’t shown on the news—shot from tanks, from the cameras of ground zero drones, from the phones of people, some of whom had died.

He had to swallow tears as he saw how the aliens shattered the coast of Chiba by driving their hideous machines from below the earth, arriving undetected from the deepest reaches of the ocean. He saw how bravely Japan fought that day, how the human race put aside their differences and suspicions to protect their own species.

It moved Ohno so greatly that he wanted to contribute to the restoration of Chiba, to do something, _anything_ , for the people’s loss. With his parents’ support and the advice of his mentors, he left Niigata and joined the Chiba Prefectural Police Force. After he passed the test to become a criminal investigator, they created a job for him based on his powers, and he’s been stationed in Togane ever since.

“I found him,” comes Jun’s voice over comms, breaking into Ohno’s thoughts. “He’s dead.”

“Location?” asks Sho breathily. He’s running.

“First floor, east side. I’ll wait for you guys in the hall.”

Ohno boosts into a wall and emerges into the hallway Jun is waiting in. They see Sho coming towards them and enter the room that Kataumi’s body is in, knowing Sho will see them and follow.

“I have twenty-two minutes left,” updates Ohno as they hurry across the room—a library, judging by how the walls are stacked to the ceiling with books.

“Four minutes to 8:43,” says Sho from behind them, and they crowd around the body.

“I know.” Jun sounds relieved as he puts his hand on Ohno’s arm.

Sho chooses Ohno’s shoulder.

“Let’s go, Oh-chan.”

***

Ohno is all ready for bed that night. He’s taken his bath, had his obligatory beer, and all he wants to do after chalking up historical minutes of overtime is to sleep. There are still boxes to be unpacked, but he doesn’t need to do them tonight.

He finishes brushing his teeth, returns the toothbrush into the holder, hangs up his towel and steps out of the washing area.

He forgets what happens after that.

***

Ohno is late for work the next day. He’s never been late before, and takes a lot of teasing from his coworkers and superiors about how the only guy in the police station who can literally control time doesn’t manage it well.

Ohno isn’t affected at all. He doesn’t even register their remarks. He’s too troubled thinking about how he woke up on the floor of his craft space, another completed picture on his desk.

***

When he gets home that evening Ohno goes straight into the craft space to look at the sketchbook he’s woken up to these couple of mornings.

The picture from two nights ago is of a dog with its front paws on a set of low, wooden railings, and its leash extends to the edge of the page, making Ohno wonder if this is from the perspective of the owner. 

He can’t see the dog’s face. Its ears are pointed, its coat a dusty gold. It’s looking out at a lake that has captured the sun in a shimmering reflection, and the sky is a remarkable blue. 

There are trees planted by the grassy bank, enclosed by a barrier similar to the railings, and this barrier leads to a bridge—a catwalk—that winds across the water in perpendicular turns. A gazebo stands at the end of it, overlooking the lake.

Ohno frowns and puts the picture close to his face to examine it. Even the clothes of the people fishing on the opposite bank are coloured in.

He flips the page. The most recent picture is of a middle-aged couple standing in the middle of a kitchen, caught in conversation with the person looking into the picture.

The lady is rotund, has a pleasant face, soft features. She’s standing at an angle from the viewer, has her hand closed around the handle of a frying pan. Her companion is a man about her height, slim, arms crossed as he leans with his back against the sink, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he offers a toothy smile.

The picture is incredibly detailed by Ohno’s standards, right down to the cups drying on a rack by the sink, and the brand of dishwashing liquid in the background.

Most of the stuff he likes to draw is contemporary. He freestyles; he doesn’t do this realism thing. Furthermore, he knows the extent of his concentration—he couldn’t have completed a drawing like that in just one night.

But judging by the dwarfing of several of his coloured pencils that match the colours in the picture, and the marks on his hands in the morning, he’s pretty sure he’s the artist.

Ohno sighs and closes the sketchbook and the case of coloured pencils. He wonders if he has a sleepwalking problem and takes out his phone to do a search for the symptoms.

Tapping on the screen is the last thing he remembers the next morning, when he wakes up to yet another picture.

***

Ohno walks into the Togane headquarters, yawning widely and brushing the resultant tears away from his eyes.

“Oh-chan, you look awful,” says Jun, staring.

Ohno walks to the centre of the room where there’s a table, takes out his _hanko_ , stamps his name on the attendance sheet. He isn’t late today. He barely made it, but he isn’t late.

It takes a while before he realises Jun has spoken.

“Hm?” Ohno turns to Jun.

Jun gets up from his seat, cocks his head towards the locker room. “Come.”

Ohno trudges after Jun, yawning again.

They find Sho in the locker room, trying to get a ketchup stain out of the cuff of his sleeve. His hands pause as he takes in Ohno’s face.

“Whoa, somebody looks like shit this morning.”

Jun laughs. “Rich, coming from you.” He nudges Ohno towards the bench by the wall, sits him down.

“You’ve not been resting enough since you moved.”

Ohno rubs his eyes. “Yeah. I know.”

Jun takes a seat on the bench opposite him, propping his elbows on his thighs, frowning up at Ohno.

“We can’t have you travelling back in time with shit energy levels, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Ohno blinks. God. His eyelids weigh a ton.

Sho comes to sit beside Ohno.

“What’s stealing your sleep?”

Ohno hunches, contemplating. Maybe it is time to tell someone.

“You guys are going to think I’m weird.”

“That’s not exactly a new concept.” Sho looks to Jun. “He picked his nose throughout our entire investiture ceremony.”

Jun snorts. He flicks at Ohno’s kneecap with the back of his fingers.

“Come on. What is it?”

Ohno looks up at both of them. He’s known these guys for a really long time. He can trust them to take him seriously.

He tells them everything: the pictures, the memory lapses, the fatigue.

“D’you guys think I’m sleepwalking?” asks Ohno, finishing his recount.

Jun and Sho look at each other, exchanging worried glances.

“Maybe you should install a security camera in your craft space, in case it happens again. There’s an app for that, I can show you,” says Sho helpfully.

Jun is looking pensive. He unclips his projection module from his belt, pulls up the search engine. “What’s your address?”

“Togane City, Kujukuri New Town, uh, Tanaka-something. Aoi?”

“Araoi?” suggests Sho.

“Yeah. ‘Higashi San-chome’ after that.”

Ohno looks at the keywords Jun is typing. “Wait—you think my apartment’s _haunted_?”

“Oh-chan.” Jun is trying to sound patient. “You’re living in the part of Chiba where aliens once killed a lot of people by sinking part of the coast.” Jun shows Ohno a map of Kujukuri New Town. “See this portion?”

“The purple one?”

“Yes. That’s where you live, right?”

“Yeah, right here.” Ohno presses his finger against the projection and it displays his address.

“Purple indicates heightened spiritual activity in the area. Didn’t you do your research before you went apartment hunting?”

“There must’ve been a catch or something…” Sho muses, then his head snaps back up. “Didn’t you say your rent is super cheap? Did you ask why?”

Ohno’s mouth falls open. “My agent told me it’s the wallpaper!”

Sho and Jun groan.

“I heard from a friend in real estate that some places have it so bad, landlords have included a clause for it in their contracts,” says Jun.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. Go check your housing contract. There might be some kind of provision for it.”

***

There’s a digital copy of his lease agreement saved on his phone, and Ohno finds out that it indeed has a haunted house clause. He calls the real estate company from his workplace, not wanting to go home and blackout before he can get this settled.

Ohno finds it hard to believe it’s a ghost behind his sudden manufacture of realist art. He’s heard of hauntings, sure—they live in a world of superpowers and alien threat, after all—but he’s always thought ghosts were scary and vicious.

Maybe the ghost in his house was just very refined.

The call connects and Inoo services him again, apologising profusely when Ohno says he suspects the apartment is haunted. Inoo requests for a few minutes—he’s going to call up the parapsychology practice they’re affiliated with and a representative will be in touch shortly.

Moments after Inoo’s call, Ohno receives another from a man who introduces himself as Aiba Masaki, supernatural specialist. He asks if he can visit the apartment that evening. Ohno says yes.

***

Aiba Masaki introduces himself—this time in person—with a winsome smile and gives his business cards out, even to Sho and Jun. He comments that a welcome party by three men in suits is not a common occurrence in (possibly) haunted homes.

He’s very good-looking, taller than all of them and probably around the same age—definitely not what Ohno imagined him to be: potbellied, eccentric and middle-aged. Ohno blames Sho for giving him the mental image; Sho kept calling him a _ghostbuster_ , and Ohno had watched all the films.

Sho and Jun are here because they’re ‘a couple of curious bastards’ (Jun’s words, not his). Ohno isn’t too keen on them being around at first (it’s late and they don’t live that close by), then he realises he’s been standing in the craft space for several minutes and _hasn’t blacked out_.

There must be something about other people being in the apartment with him that’s keeping the fits of art at bay.

Ohno is suddenly glad that his friends are here.

“I’ve known this guy for years and this is the first time I’m seeing his artwork,” Jun says, mostly to himself, as he turns the pages of the sketchbook.

“Oh, hey, it’s _Puzzle and Dragons_.” Sho points to the screen of the game console, in the hands of the person the picture’s perspective is drawn from. “You nailed it, Satoshi-kun. Right down to the level-up graphics.”

“It’s like a photograph,” says Jun in awe. “You’ve captured the way the sun hits, the detail of the passengers…”

Sho taps his finger on a shoe, a strappy sandal at the end of a very feminine-looking leg on the right of the gamer.

“My god, that’s a wicked high heel. Once during a raid I got stepped on by someone wearing something like that. I thought I had to amputate my toe.”

“This isn’t representative of my style, though.” Ohno takes back the sketchbook. He offers it to Aiba.

“Aiba-san, I would’ve taken days to finish one picture like that, and here there are three.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to show them to me.” Aiba politely holds up a hand. “I get what’s going on. You’re losing sleep, probably using up massive amounts of energy as well, because you’re staying up to draw—yet you have no recollection of drawing the pictures.”

Ohno nods, flicking through the pages. “Also, I’ve never met these people, I’ve never been to this park, and I’ve never played this game.”

Aiba is humming thoughtfully. “Ohno-san, do you happen to be a Prior?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

Aiba takes out a spherical object from his messenger bag, sweeps his thumb under it to switch it on. A 3D projection of numbers and parapsychology jargon is brought forth, and Aiba frowns in concentration as he deciphers it.

“The spirits of the dead tend to be more sensitive to Priors. They can sense a Prior’s inherent supernatural power, which sends them into hiding.”

Sho scrunches up his nose. “Hiding?”

Aiba nods, swivelling his data towards the three. None of them understand it it.

“The readings are through the roof. There’s definitely something here,” explains Aiba, gesturing to a value on the projection.

“Wouldn’t the readings be _lower_ if the ghost is hiding?” Ohno tries to wrap his head around it.

“It’s not hiding as we understand it; they don’t actually conceal themselves further, especially since we can’t see them in the first place. It’s more of a defence mechanism because, well, Priors like me, we sort of hunt them down and destroy their souls?” Aiba lets out a nervous laugh. “That’s why they’re wary of Priors in general.”

Ohno raises his eyebrows. “That’s… understandable.”

“Yeah.” Aiba pauses. “It’s said that they clam up and converge their energy into themselves, trying to form a cocoon of spiritual protection, and the resultant force of that creates a massive resonance of power within the affected space.”

Ohno catches Jun giving him a quizzical look. Ohno shakes his head despairingly, indicating he has no idea what Aiba just said, and Jun bites his lip to stifle a laugh.

Sho, on the other hand, seems to have no problem. “So you’re saying the more scared a ghost is, the more powerful it gets?”

“Yes, and the more it affects the inhabitants it haunts.” Aiba taps the sketchbook, looks at Ohno. “This ghost hasn’t hurt you, has it?”

“It hurts my sleep schedule.”

Aiba’s expression turns all businesslike. He keeps his sphere, takes out a folder from his bag and draws out a brochure.

“There are four plans available, two of which are covered by the relevant clause in your housing contract. Plan A: we rent out devices to you, to keep the ghost at bay. Plan B: we catch the ghost, but we don’t cleanse your apartment.”

“What are the other plans?” asks Ohno.

“Plan C is a step up from B, inclusive of a cleansing ritual. Plan D is everything including a two-year warranty, in case of a recurrence.”

“Recurrence?”

“If another ghost occupies the home.”

“Oh.”

“What if Ohno-kun decides to move instead?” asks Sho.

“He won’t get his refundable deposit back,” says Aiba. “The landlord will use it for a Plan C extraction.”

Ohno makes a face. He’s not a fan of losing that much money. He takes the brochure, leafs through it perfunctorily.

“When you say ‘extraction’—what does that entail?” asks Ohno.

“We destroy their souls,” Aiba says neutrally.

Ohno takes in a deep breath. He doesn’t like the sound of that. “Is there a less brutal method?”

Aiba shakes his head.

“They change, these spirits.” Aiba’s voice is very soft now, and Ohno can’t help but shiver at his tone.

“Ghosts have only the memories of their last day on earth. These pictures you’ve drawn—they’re very possibly depicting it.

“Even ghosts who are initially harmless turn violent because there’s nothing they can do about being dead, and they get jealous of the living. That’s why having them in close proximity isn’t recommended.”

Sho raises his hand for a question.

“If they only have the memories of the day they died, why would they remember that they’re dead?”

Aiba blinks, not getting the question. Ohno doesn’t either.

“I mean, if they are truly frustrated about being dead, it means that every day after they die is a new day, where they realise they’re dead. These days count towards a new set of memories. Posthumous memories, if you will. Doesn’t this mean they create more and more memories with every passing day? You can’t say that they only have the memories of their last day then, right?”

Ohno is still trying to follow Sho’s train of thought, but Aiba seems to get it.

“Well for you and I, memories serve us in many ways. They shape our personalities and remind us how to act in different situations. But ghosts are feeling creatures, ruled completely by their hearts, in a manner of speaking.

“What they experience after their death aren’t memories, but pure emotion. The final memories that they own represent their greatest, most tragic loss. That’s why they can’t leave. They’re stuck here.”

Ohno still doesn’t completely understand the technicalities of the haunting, but he knows one thing.

“They don’t like it,” he says flatly.

All eyes fall on him.

“I’m sorry…?” hazards Aiba.

“You said it just now. Ghosts are afraid of Priors because they get hunted and their souls get destroyed. They hide because they don’t want their souls to die.”

Aiba shakes his head.

“Ohno-san. You have to understand that these spirits are trapped. Unless you can change how they died, there’s no way they can find their way out of this aimless existence. They have no other purpose except to cause trouble for the person they’re haunting.”

Ohno considers this. “What if I don’t consider it trouble?”

Aiba’s eyes flick from Ohno to Jun, then Sho. He’s pleading for intervention.

Sho drags Ohno by the elbow, turns him so their backs are facing Aiba. Ohno can hear Jun apologising for Ohno’s weirdness.

“Are you seriously feeling compassion for a ghost?” Sho asks Ohno under his breath.

“All it’s done so far is to make me very sleepy and draw pretty pictures,” Ohno mutters back. “It seems too cruel for its payback to be utter annihilation.”

“…You’re so strange, Satoshi-kun.”

Ohno straightens and turns to Aiba once more.

“I have your name card and the brochure. I’ll let you know if I need your services. Thank you for coming by at such short notice, Aiba-san.”

***

Ohno sleeps soundly for the rest of the week.

***

They’re having a strategy meeting—Team A has consolidated all the statements they need from the twelve members of the Kataumi household. Now, Jun’s team has to go back in time to see what each of the twelve was doing on the day of the invasion.

“How about this Nemoto Masaharu? The houseman. He has this whole story about being stuck in Tokyo during the attack and not being able to return to Kujukuri when the trains stopped,” says Sho.

Jun looks at his notes. “He says he can’t remember what time he left the mansion. In all fairness, though, it _was_ sixteen years ago. Sometimes I don’t even remember what I ate for lunch.”

They spend the next few minutes in silence, reading over the statement again and again, when finally, Sho speaks.

“I have an idea.”

Ohno realises Sho is looking at him.

“Go on,” he urges.

“It says here that Nemoto remembers he got onto the train at Togane Station when it was ‘still light out’. At first I was thinking we could visit the mansion from sunset and go back in hourly intervals, but I think it saves Satoshi-kun more energy if we could use the train schedule.”

“Why the train schedule?” asks Jun.

“We know he took the train, and it’s the only thing that gives us a precise, definite timeframe. If the first train was, say, 5:00 AM, we know Nemoto couldn’t have left Togane before 5:00 AM. If we could find out what time he got up that day, for example, we could just cross the earlier trains off the list.”

With a bit of searching, Sho pulls up the 2017 departure train schedule for Togane Station on his projection module. Ohno is struck by how few trains there were every hour, but knows he shouldn’t be surprised. Togane was pretty rural 16 years ago. 

Sho brings another page forward. It’s the sunset and sunrise times for August 2017.

“There are twenty-two trains between sunrise to sunset. Nemoto was definitely on one of these twenty-two trains. Bearing in mind that every time Satoshi-kun travels, our time in the past shortens, I think we should break this up into a few trips.”

“I can also do a reset if it’s necessary,” reminds Ohno. “Snap to the present and then to the designated point in time.”

“That still compromises your energy levels, doesn’t it? You’d have to render us again every trip.”

“You’re right.” Ohno can’t help but marvel. Sometimes, Sho seems to know how his powers work better than he does.

“Still, it’s an option.” Jun drums his fingers on the table. “If we get lucky, though, and we can guess what time he gets to the station, we don’t have to hit up every train.”

“The first train is 5:06 AM, the twenty-second is 6:42 PM. He biked to the station, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, it’s about a twenty-five-minute bike ride.”

“So assuming that he left from home just like he said, he’d have to leave the mansion at least twenty-five minutes before any of these departure times.”

Ohno realises something. “We can rule out the first train, then. The sun hadn’t risen twenty-five minutes before 5:06.”

Jun actually cheers.

Sho studies the timetable. “How about we go to the mansion at 10:15 AM? The 10:57 is the eleventh train, the halfway mark. If he’s still at home, we know he’d have taken a later train. If he’s not, then we’ll just travel backwards until we find him.”

“I’m for it.” Jun closes his projection module. “Let me get the Chief’s consent before we leave.”

***

With multiple warps they manage to narrow down a timeframe in which Nemoto left the mansion’s bike shed. He’s going to catch the 2:57 PM, and they use their flight module to follow his bike when he leaves the estate.

Ohno sticks close to Sho and Jun this time, since they’re only tailing one person. They finally get to Togane Station, and follow Nemoto onto the platform. 

“Oh-chan. Update,” says Jun, all leader-like, as they circle Nemoto, who is currently playing a game on his smartphone.

“Thirteen minutes,” Ohno answers.

Jun looks at his watch. “We should follow him as far as time allows us. Get to the furthest point so we can see where he ends up, and continue monitoring his journey another day.”

The train arrives and they board.

“We’re down to eleven minutes,” announces Ohno.

“Ooami, the terminus for this train, is eight minutes away,” informs Sho as they walk with Nemoto, who’s searching for a seat. “We should have enough time to get off with him, follow him to his transfer, get an idea of the time for our next trip.”

It’s a Saturday; the trains aren’t full, but there aren’t any empty seats. Nemoto weaves through the standing passengers, trying to find a comfortable place to stand. Dissatisfied with his choices, he opens the door to the next compartment.

A strange sensation hits Ohno as he walks through the carriage. He doesn’t know what it is exactly, but he gets distracted from the thought as he bumps into Sho’s back.

“What’s going on?” Ohno asks, puzzled.

“Matsujun waited for Nemoto to open the door.” Sho chuckles.

Jun is looking embarrassed as he walks through the glass panel, remembering he can pass through solid matter. “Sorry. Reflex.”

Nemoto finds a seat, and he plops himself down, going back to his game.

Jun and Sho start talking about what they’re going to do on the next trip, but Ohno’s mind wanders to the feeling that hit him in the previous compartment. He tries to put a name to it.

He frowns as he realises it’s déjà vu.

“How many minutes before we show?” Sho’s voice cuts into his thoughts.

Ohno monitors his adrenaline for a few seconds. “Four,” he answers.

The announcement for the next stop comes over the train intercom. They will be arriving at Ooami shortly.

Ohno stares at the other compartment. He wants to look at it again before the train empties out.

“Oh-chan, you okay?” Jun asks, frowning.

“I need to take a look at that carriage,” says Ohno impulsively as he starts backing towards the connector.

“What? The train is stopping—”

“Sorry! Won’t take long!” Ohno dashes down the aisle, runs into the glass doors, skids to a stop as he sees the people in the carriage and their clothes, their faces.

They’re from the third picture.

The perspective is different, but it’s unmistakable. He sees a pair of feminine legs uncrossing as the train rolls to a stop, recognises the strappy sandals on those feet, the one with the heels that are capable of amputating Sho’s toes.

The lady gets up to disembark, and she’s so tall standing up that she obscures his view of the person who sat beside her, the one who has to be holding a portable game console.

_The one Ohno walked past just now._

“Oh-chan, we’re getting off,” comes Jun’s voice warningly, and Ohno tears his eyes away from the scene and charges towards Jun and Sho, apologising as his heart thunders against his chest.

His ghost is on this train.

***

It feels like an eternity ago that Ohno gets to be at home at nine in the evening. He still has unpacked boxes lying around, and a ton of laundry to do.

Ohno wonders if the ghost is still around. He hasn’t had the uncontrollable urge to draw ever since Aiba came over to evaluate the haunting.

It’s weird, but he sort of misses the ghost.

Ohno gets ready for bed by 9:30 because he’s so tired. It’s been such a long day, and their search for Nemoto’s train had been relentlessly tedious. But if they hadn’t gone on that investigation, Ohno wouldn’t have been on that train.

He continues thinking about the ghost as he brushes his teeth. Ohno has this stupid way of brushing, swinging his head to sweep his teeth against the bristles instead of moving his hand. It’s like a carwash, he thinks, and grins to himself as he imagines the ghost looking at him now and laughing; except in his mind, the ghost doesn’t really have a face.

He spits, gargles, looks at himself in the mirror.

He wants to know how this ghost looks like.

Ohno closes his eyes, evaluates his current condition. Nobody is going with him; he can easily manage a couple of minutes in the past.

He returns his toothbrush to its holder, and then he’s gone.

***

Ohno conceals himself the moment he arrives in 2017, astonished at how fast it takes. He’s forgotten how it feels to travel solo. It’s freeing, having no one’s safety to worry about except his own.

There’s still a bit of time before the train arrives, and Ohno walks through the conductor’s office just for the heck of it, passing through desks and peering at the computer screens of old over the shoulders of the staff.

It’s wildly unprofessional and very immature.

Ohno chuckles to himself as he emerges from the other side of a wall.

When he was a kid, he’d asked one of his particularly learned mentors why, when concealed, they pass through chairs when they try to sit down yet don’t sink into the ground with every step. She’d tried to explain it with a concept called ‘spatial cognisance’, launching into a lengthy explanation about the connection between body awareness, the environment and gravity. It was so complicated that Ohno gave up understanding it after the first few minutes of her lecture.

“It’s one of those Prior phenomena,” he’d told anyone who sought his opinion on the matter.

Ohno makes his way to the open-air platform, tries to remember where he should board. Several people on the platform are fanning themselves, and the afternoon sun is blinding. He’s glad he can’t feel the weather. Ohno shields his eyes, locates Nemoto, lines up behind him.

Ohno’s heart starts thumping as he watches the train arrive. He doesn’t know why he’s nervous. It’s not like he’s new to the idea of going back in time to find out about the lives of dead people—that’s literally his job.

But he isn’t here for work. He’s here for—

It isn’t pleasure, is it?

Well, it’s not like the ghost is going to know he’s prying into its life, Ohno thinks as he boards.

He’s in the compartment, moving through numerous passengers, keeping his line of sight low. He’s looking for the strappy high heels, finally finds them.

Ohno swallows, his mouth dry. He moves his eyes to the feet of the person he’s looking for.

His ghost is a man, and he wears flip-flops.

 _Flip-flops._ Ohno finds this funny.

The man’s pale legs are revealed by his denim capris, and he’s paired these with a casual button-down over a V-necked T-shirt. Ohno lifts his eyes to his face, and his mouth falls open.

Ohno isn’t sure what he was imagining his ghost to look like; his impression of ghosts from books and films were greyish, floating shapes that could look human if you squinted, or on the other extreme, hideous and demonic with horns and protruding tongues.

But this creature mashing the buttons of his 3DS is _fucking gorgeous_.

Ohno feels his cheeks burn. Maybe it’s just the comparison to what he perceived ghosts to be that’s making him feel this way, Ohno tries to rationalise, as he observes his ghost’s boyish face.

It’s smooth and diamond-shaped with lovely soft cheekbones. He notices the angular outline of his eyebrows, notes how they get sparser at the ends.

There’s so much to see, Ohno thinks, as he takes in the slope of his nose, spots the mole on his chin. Ohno is embarrassed at how attractive he finds him when he flicks his head to get his fringe out of his eyes.

And his _mouth_ —Ohno feels a bit giddy, and every bit of a perv (hang on, how old is this guy?)—his upper lip is thin, his cupid’s bow rounded, his lower lip fuller in the middle. They curve upwards slightly as his thumbs stop moving; Ohno remembers the level-up screen. This must be his moment of triumph.

Then he looks up, almost as if he’s looking straight at Ohno, the barest hint of that charming victory smile still ghosting his face, and Ohno stops breathing.

His eyes. His eyes are beautiful, a shade of brown lighter than Ohno’s own. They’re kind, inquisitive, unassuming.

They make Ohno’s heart race.

The man looks back down at his screen again, and Ohno allows himself one last look before he leaves.

***

Ohno switches on the light in his craft space, not tired anymore. He’s afraid he’ll forget that face if he sleeps, although a very rational part of him is expressing disapproval about using his powers to basically spy on a dead guy (and end up getting attracted to him—what the fuck?).

Nevertheless, Ohno squashes his misgivings, puts on some Kuwata Keisuke to set the mood, grabs his sketchbook and a pencil, and spends the next hour sketching his ghost.

***

Ohno is roused in the middle of the night by the sound of his phone ringing. There’s been a multiple-victim homicide and he’s to report to work immediately.

For the next five days, Ohno practically lives at headquarters.

Ohno takes a few teams of his coworkers into the past a couple of times to observe the scene of the crime. Being able to do this rapidly speeds up investigations, but it’s hard being a cop and having to witness a murder and not do anything about it. It’s something they will never get used to.

When the case is finally solved, all Ohno wants to do is return home for a good night’s sleep, knowing it won’t be long before he’ll have to gear up for the Kataumi case again.

As it turns out, he doesn’t immediately get his precious shuteye, because when he arrives at his apartment he gets slammed with a heady excitement, one that gives him a powerful urge to draw. While not entirely willing, he’s fully conscious of what he’s doing, doesn’t pass out, doesn’t hesitate as he opens his sketchbook and reaches for his pencils, his hand moving non-stop over the paper for an hour and a half.

He can’t control fatigue from setting in and starts nodding off at the desk, but when that happens the headiness ebbs away, and he leaves the picture unfinished. He realises he’s basically woken up from a trance, but better that than waking up on the floor with a piece of art he doesn’t even remember creating.

Massaging his temples, Ohno leaves the room, leans against the door that he closes behind him.

He needs to call Aiba again.

***

During lunch the next afternoon Ohno announces his decision to ask Aiba for advice about the spirit-influenced, semi-voluntary picture-drawing. He doesn’t mention that he went back in time just so he could see the ghost’s face and ended up drawing its portrait, very likely sparking the recent development.

His announcement prompts Sho to make a startling confession.

“I’m… kind of dating him.” Sho’s ears turn quite pink. “We’ve only gone out once. Went pretty well, actually.”

“Aiba-san, right? Not the ghost?” asks Jun after a pause.

Ohno cackles, and Sho rolls his eyes at Jun.

“So you’re dating a heartless destroyer of souls,” says Ohno before he slurps up some of his soba.

“Don’t say that,” moans Sho, looking forlorn. “He’s not like that. I mean, technically he is, but he’s not _heartless_ —”

“Sho-chan.” Ohno laughs, patting Sho on the arm. “I’m kidding. Go date whoever you want.”

Jun takes a bite of his sandwich. “He gave us his business card when we met at Oh-chan’s place—I assume you were the one who called him?”

Ohno smiles into his bowl. Matsujun, super sleuth. This is why he’s the leader of their team.

“Well, he seemed nice, knowledgeable in his field, and he was, well…” Sho gestures, searching for the right word.

“Hot?” Jun suggests.

“…Yeah,” says Sho, defeated.

Ohno and Jun snigger without ceremony.

“May I make one more deduction?” asks Jun.

“Not like saying ‘no’ is going to stop you.”

Jun grins. “You’ve brought this up so you can call Aiba-san, am I right? ‘Calling on behalf of a friend’?”

“…What is this, an interrogation?!”

“Matsujun saw right through your teenaged move, Sho-chan. But you can make the call, no problem.”

Jun puts his hand on Ohno’s shoulder. “Wait, Oh-chan. Shouldn’t Sho-kun ask you _nicely_?”

Sho glowers at Jun, but the blush that’s staining his neck and face makes it difficult to take him seriously.

“Ah.” Ohno grins, cottoning on. “That’s true. Sho-chan, ask me nicely.”

“I hate the both of you so much right now,” groans Sho, sinking into his seat.

Jun nudges Ohno, points his chin to Ohno’s phone.

Ohno removes the phone from his shirt pocket, scrolls to his call history, turns the screen towards Sho and hovers a finger over Aiba’s name. He smiles at Sho serenely.

“Okay, fine.” Sho says, a wheeze in his voice. “Satoshi-kun, may I please make the call in your stead?”

“Sure,” says Ohno without missing a beat, and Jun lets out a hoot of laughter before slapping him a high-five.

Sho just sighs.

***

“Are you _sure_ you didn’t try to communicate with it?” asks Aiba for the third time as he walks around the apartment with his ghost-detecting sphere, Ohno trailing after him.

Ohno shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything.”

He’s not lying, not exactly. He just has a different take on the definition of ‘communication’.

Aiba turns to look at him. “Ohno-san, what exactly do you want me to do here?”

They come to a stop in the middle of the living room, and Ohno doesn’t really have an answer for Aiba. He realises he’s probably seeking some peace of mind, hoping to find out that expressing enough affection for the ghost to draw his portrait hasn’t cost him a lifetime of sleep deprivation.

But he can’t ask Aiba that, because then he’d have to explain why he went back in time by himself, and worse, why he drew the picture. (He doubts ‘I found my ghost really cute’ sounds even remotely sane.)

“The ghost—is it still here?” asks Ohno instead.

Aiba manages to look very patient as he swivels towards Ohno the projection hovering over his device.

“Yes. See this number? It’s larger than five, right?”

Ohno nods, squinting at the table of numerals.

“This means the ghost is definitely here.” Aiba pauses, giving Ohno a worried look. “There’s another thing. Look at this column. It measures the ghost’s bloodlust, and—”

“I’m sorry— _bloodlust_?”

“It’s just a term for how vengeful it is, how powerful are its violent tendencies, the like,” Aiba gives a noncommittal wave of his hand, “but the point is—last time I was here, the reading was 0.7, which is relatively low to begin with. Now, it’s 0.25.”

Aiba takes a deep breath, looking very grave. “The ghost has taken a liking to you, Ohno-san.”

Ohno hopes he’s not blushing.

“And that’s a bad thing?” he asks, though he’s fully aware of Aiba’s tone of voice and solemn expression.

“I told you—they make judgements based on feelings. I can’t pinpoint what kind of affection it has for you—it may be amorous, platonic, maternal, we can’t tell—but it’s never turned out well when they latch onto a living person. You’re feeding its emotional blood bank, making it thrive, making it happy.

“And when that’s taken away from them, like if you move away, or if you bring someone you like home, the results can be disastrous. Case in point: I had a client whose ghost made his girlfriend try to jump out a third-storey window, and she had no recollection of it.”

Ohno shudders. He knows what it's like to have a spirit-induced blackout. It’s just never crossed his mind that he could die from it.

“From what you’ve told me about this fourth picture, the ghost is still trying to share its memories with you, but it also cares for you enough to stop communicating when you get tired.”

Aiba sighs. “I presume that when you were drawing, you felt a strong rush of emotion?”

“Yeah. Excitement, actually.”

“I thought so. Spirits are powerful enough to control the part of your mind that produces dopamine, raising your levels to a dangerous high. I have to warn you—some people get addicted to that feeling. It’s not healthy to form a relationship with the dead, Ohno-san. I’ve been in this profession for more than ten years, and I’ve never seen any of it ending well.”

Ohno understands where Aiba is coming from, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ohno really doesn’t want to be part of, or the reason for, a person’s soul being destroyed.

“When we speak… do ghosts understand?”

“They don’t understand verbal language, but they pick up on things like moods, intent. They know when you’re happy, when you’re unwilling to do something, even when you’re hungry.”

This makes sense to Ohno. “Because they run on emotional fuel. They identify feelings.”

“Exactly.” Aiba looks a little more relieved now that Ohno has managed to vocalise a key concept. “And they react to you based on those feelings.”

Ohno nods, thinks he’s got it figured out.


	2. Chapter 2

Ohno closes the door of his apartment, hearing Aiba’s voice fade as he tells Sho over the phone that he’s done at Ohno’s, and where’s the bar again?

 _Good job, Sho-chan_ , Ohno thinks, before shaking his head to clear it. _No. No being happy for friends. Feelings trigger reactions. No feelings, no reactions._

Ohno steps out of the entryway.

 _My mind is a void,_ he starts telling himself as he closes his eyes, lets out a whoosh of breath.

 _Void. Emptiness. Nothingness._ Ohno continues his mantra as he turns. He steels his gaze on a shadowy spot past the entrance to the living room.

It’s not difficult, clearing one’s mind. Ohno knows the theory; they had courses for that in the academy, some chakra meditation class that he aced. The swami teaching them even said he had a gift. 

Ohno starts walking into the apartment, feeling in control. He’s thinking of nothing. Aiba said the ghost fed on feelings. He isn’t going to let that happen. He isn’t going to let the ghost make him draw compulsively every single—

—then he’s sitting at the desk in his craft space, terrifyingly excited to complete the picture he couldn’t finish the day before.

Crap.

***

When Ohno regains independent sentience, he leans back in his seat, slightly out of breath. He holds the sketchbook in his hands, looking down at the picture before him.

He’s drawn what looks like a form for the transfer of a car insurance policy to a new vehicle, and also a pair of hands; the left has its fingers closed around a name stamp, pressing it against the paper, while the right is splayed, stubby fingers covering part of the remarks field.

Ohno peers at the printed Mincho font, commends himself on the accuracy of the replication. His eyes move down the form.

Period of coverage.

Name.

Address.

Ohno’s eyes flick up.

_Name._

Ohno feels a gush of emotion, all his own, as he reads the characters and the syllables penned above each one. 

_Ninomiya Kazunari._

He’s learnt his ghost’s name.

***

Ohno completes two more pictures with his ghost over the next week. He finds out that (a) Ninomiya plays baseball, and (b) he’s capable of drawing the most detailed reverse side of a lefty glove as it anticipates a ball, superimposed against the sky and its cirrus clouds.

He wonders if Ninomiya made the catch.

He also discovers that Ninomiya owned one of those old Sony Xperias, a model that was all the rage amongst Android fans when Ohno just entered high school. Ninomiya had taken a photo of a group of peace-sign-flashing teenagers around a barbecue pit, mostly boys, fireworks in the night sky behind them.

He wonders who they are, how Ninomiya is connected to them. He wonders if he should be using the present tense as he thinks this.

“Satoshi-kun?”

Ohno blinks, snaps out of his daydream. “Here. Sorry,” he says to Sho, who’s looking at him in concern.

“We got clearance. Ready to go?” asks Jun.

Team A’s investigations have suggested that several key persons were behind the murder, and today they’re going to observe the daily life of the cook, whom they suspect had links to the yakuza.

Ohno brings them to 7:20 AM, three weeks before the attack. It’s the rainy season, and Jun looks miffed as Ohno quickly performs the final touches on his concealment.

“My socks are wet,” complains Jun.

“Sorry. I’ll try to render you guys faster next time,” soothes Ohno. “We have seventy-two minutes. What’s next?”

“We get off this building.”

They’re on the rooftop of a school, one of the safest places to appear, since roofs are often off-limits to students. Ohno and Jun can’t help but exchange wicked grins as they check out Sho’s expression when he lifts off. He’s gotten a lot better with jumping off high places, but still scrunches up his face when his feet leave the ground. It’s adorable.

They land beside a utility pole. Sho switches off his flight module before pointing to the sign on it that says _Araoi 1-14_.

“Satoshi-kun. I think this is where your neighbourhood is in the future.”

“Really? You’d think that with the restoration things would be all brand new.”

“They kept most of the zonal demarcation lines when they rebuilt the coastal area. Tanaka-Araoi is the district adjacent to this one.”

“How do you know these things?” asks Ohno.

Sho shrugs. “I read them and they get stuck in my head.”

“Impressive,” says Ohno, meaning it because Sho isn’t a Chiba native. He’s from Tokyo and was a student volunteer for the Chiba Restoration Project before he became a member of the Chiba Prefectural Police Force.

Okay, maybe it isn’t so weird that Sho knows all this trivia. He really loves Chiba.

Jun is already walking ahead, and he motions to the both of them to hurry up.

“We have sixty-eight minutes.” Ohno provides the update, and Jun nods in response. 

According to Shiraishi Tooru, who is now officially a witness, the cook would head out of the mansion at 7:00 AM every day to a greengrocer situated about 20 minutes away from the mansion. The shop is just around the corner from the junior high, and they’re going there to wait for the cook.

Sho is looking at the cook’s picture as they walk along the edge of a rice field. A couple of boys in raincoats bike towards them, hurrying towards the school the detectives just left, and Jun sidesteps so they don’t pass through him.

Sho looks up. “First day of the job treating you well?” he teases.

“It’s _reflex_ ,” Jun insists. “Show me Kozaka’s picture again?” Jun changes the subject on purpose.

Sho makes no further comment and spins the projection of the cook’s face towards Jun. He throws Ohno a glance, rolling his eyes in Jun’s direction.

Ohno grins. It’s a dreary business, investigating murders, so it really helps that his partners have a sense of humour.

They turn left at the junction to get on the street where the greengrocer is. A group of students and a man are approaching, and Ohno can’t help but shake his head and laugh as Jun automatically twists his body to avoid them. He’s about to join Sho in making a quip when the students—all girls—tilt their umbrellas up and greet the adult with a chorus of ‘good morning, Ninomiya-sensei’.

Ohno freezes as the man turns to them, answers with a greeting of his own, and continues walking briskly in Ohno’s direction.

Ohno can see his face now.

It’s him. It’s Ninomiya.

He walks right through Ohno.

Pulse racing, Ohno spins on his heel, sees Ninomiya slow down, come to a stop, turn around to look at him.

No, it can’t be. He’s not looking at Ohno. He doesn’t know Ohno’s there.

“Togashi,” says Ninomiya, “why didn’t you show up for cleaning yesterday?”

Ohno hears one of the students behind him laughing embarrassedly as she gives her excuse, and his heartbeat regulates.

Ohno takes his eyes off Ninomiya and the students, wills himself to turn around. Sho and Jun, several metres ahead of him, seem to have just noticed his absence. He jogs up to them, apologising, lies that he was tying his shoelace, is asked why he’s sporting that goofy smile.

He wipes it off his face though he’s still feeling really happy inside.

So Ninomiya is a teacher.

***

There’s a calendar hanging on the wall of the meeting room where they’re about to have their debrief and Ohno stops to look at it because he realises it’s displaying a photograph of the old Kujukuri Town. They’ve been travelling to the area so often this past month for the Kataumi case that he’s gotten quite familiar with it.

It’s the middle of April, but the calendar is still on February. Ohno flips the pages to the right month and hangs the calendar back up again.

“Thanks, Satoshi-kun,” Sho calls from the other side of the room, looking up briefly from his notes.

“Ah.” Ohno acknowledges Sho and goes back to the calendar. Jun’s still in the Chief’s office; he’s got time to kill before the meeting.

April features a close up of a cherry blossom branch, its flowers in mid-bloom.

 _Mamezakura in Miyajima Pond Shinsui Park, 2015_ , Ohno reads the caption. He admires the photo for a moment longer before noticing the blurred background.

There’s a large body of water with a wooden catwalk zig-zagging across it. The catwalk connects to a gazebo.

The door to the meeting room slides open and Jun comes back, all ready to start. Ohno hurries back to his seat, keeping his face impassive as he listens to Jun, struggling to concentrate as he tries to contain his joy at the surprise discovery.

***

“So it’s a _pond_ ,” says Ohno out loud as he looks at the first picture his ghost made him draw.

“You never told me,” continues Ohno, “but then again, you can’t speak, so you couldn’t have.”

Ohno pauses to laugh, shielding his mouth with his fist.

“I’m losing my mind,” he says after a few moments, sighing through the gaps of his crooked fingers.

In the background, Takeuchi Mariya sings about a beautiful day.

It’s been 25 days since Ohno moved into the apartment, 25 days since he’s gotten acquainted with his ghost.

Ohno decides that no matter what Aiba says—about ghosts becoming violent and all that—doesn’t change the fact that Aiba has only one method when it comes to taking care of Ninomiya’s haunting.

The guy _died_ , very possibly during the attempted alien invasion, and he obviously wasn’t too happy about it, seeing that he got stuck on earth. Destroying his soul would be like killing him again. It just doesn’t feel right.

Besides, Aiba said that the ghost _likes_ Ohno. They’re getting along, living amiably with one another, as creepy as that sounds. There’s no saying that his ghost will turn nasty. Ninomiya could very well be the exception to the norm.

(Or rather, the _para_ norm.

Ohno laughs to himself, amused by his own joke.)

Ohno absentmindedly turns the pages of his sketchbook, looking at the pictures one by one as he hums along to the song that’s playing.

 _I’m dancing, singing, I’m calling you. I’m cookin’ pies and I’m happy too,_ sings Mariya.

Ohno wonders where ghost-Ninomiya is, why he hasn’t come to draw. After his brush with Ninomiya outside the school today, Ohno can’t help but wonder what kind of person Ninomiya is.

He comes to the most recent picture that he’s drawn, the one of the barbecue, the picture within a picture. It suddenly strikes him that the teenagers in the photo might be Ninomiya’s students.

Ohno smiles at this. Ninomiya seems like a really cool teacher.

Ohno flips back to the page that contains the picture of the insurance form, looks down at the address, a thought sneaking into his mind, the temptation of it staggering.

Ohno closes his eyes. He knows he shouldn’t do it.

_Oh beautiful day today. I love you and I hope you—_

***

Cicadas chirp, replacing Mariya’s voice.

Ohno is incredibly nervous as he stands outside the door of Ninomiya’s apartment, wondering if this is how criminals feel before committing a crime.

Ninomiya isn’t at home—he should be on the train at this moment—but Ohno just wants to have a look. He’s not going to touch anything, he swears. And it’s not like he’s spying on Ninomiya.

He’s just breaking into his apartment.

Ohno walks through the door.

The entryway is tiny. There’s barely room for two pairs of shoes, and it looks even smaller with the pet gate that’s fixed across it.

Ohno steps inside, whispers an ‘excuse me’, looks around.

He’s in the kitchen. He stops and stares, shuffles to a spot opposite the sink. It’s definitely the one from the second picture, the one with the middle-aged couple.

Ohno wonders if they’re at home and panics, only for a moment, before calming himself. They won’t be able to see him even if they were here. Ohno recalls Jun’s penchant for making the same blunder, reminds himself not to tease Jun so much about it next time.

There’s a large cardboard box by the refrigerator, and Ohno peers into it. He can’t see much because three of the flaps are covering its contents, but when he squints he sees some onions inside.

There’s a shipping label on the top with Ninomiya’s name and address. This isn’t just a container Ninomiya brought home from the supermarket to hold vegetables; this is a parcel. It was sent in late June, a little over a month ago. Ohno grins when he sees _Kaa-chan and Tou-chan_ in the Sender field. Cute.

He checks out their address, finds out they live in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture. Ohno starts memorising their address as he thinks of making a trip to Ninomiya’s childhood home, assuming that his parents have never relocated.

Wait, what?

Ohno stops himself. He’s not going to stalk Ninomiya so far back in time.

It’s too late, though. He’s remembered the address. Ohno blames it on its ridiculous simplicity, tries to forget it.

_Shima 1-2-3._

Damn.

Ohno ventures further, walks through another pet gate. He’s faced with two doors, one of them a set of sliding fusuma panels.

“Excuse me,” he voices apologetically, and chooses the room behind the fusuma.

It looks like this is Ninomiya’s living space. There’s a dog sleeping in the crate set against the wall and a low table that faces a TV.

A set of sliding glass doors reveal the veranda, where there’s some laundry hanging out to dry. The peg frame that’s clipped onto the overhead rod swings in what must be the breeze outside, and Ohno bursts out laughing as the face of a goat on a pair of trunks rotate slowly towards him. Ninomiya has fine taste in underwear.

Ohno walks up to the dog crate, crouches, watches the dog paw the air as it dreams. It’s not very large, and Ohno guesses it’s a mutt: its face resembles the native Japanese breeds and its legs are rather short. It’s fawn-coloured, as he remembers from his drawing, and he reaches out to pass his fingers behind its triangular ears, hoping the motion would satisfy his desire to pet it. He wonders what its name is.

Ohno straightens and bright spots flash in front of his eyes. Alarmed, he checks his energy levels. He’s almost out. If he doesn’t leave now he’ll materialise, and that would risk waking up the dog.

As he gets ready to leave, Ohno casts a glance towards the room he has yet to explore.

He’ll be back.

***

“How are things with the haunting? I asked Aiba-kun, but he’s strict on client confidentiality.”

Sho is looking at him expectantly. His gaze makes Ohno fidget.

“Fine,” answers Ohno at last, jotting something in his file just so he has something to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jun interrupting the outlining of the meeting agenda on the conference room board to exchange a glance with Sho.

“Is the ghost still making you draw?” asks Sho.

“No,” Ohno replies immediately.

It’s the truth. The ghost isn’t _forcing_ him to draw—nowadays he’s more or less a willing participant.

No one needs to know.

“I thought you got Aiba-san to go to your apartment a second time—you _still_ haven’t gotten rid of it?” asks Jun.

Ohno can’t help but make a face at Jun’s choice of words. “Ghosts used to be people, you know. It’s not a bug extermination.”

“It’s not like keeping a pet either,” argues Sho, rounding the table to sit by Ohno. “What if it takes over your life?”

Ohno stares at Sho. Aiba might not have revealed what’s going on in Ohno’s home, but he’s definitely been satiating Sho’s curiosity about hauntings.

Jun sighs as he clicks his pen off.

“You can’t let it stay forever, Oh-chan.”

Ohno wants to ask ‘why not’, stops himself in time.

“I know,” he says instead, looking away.

There is a knock on the door, and the rookie, Yamada, peers at them through the narrow glass panel. Jun waves him in. Yamada bobs his head in thanks, slides the door open, and the members of Team A file into the room, bowing and asking for their favour.

Sho catches Ohno’s eye as they stand, getting ready to chair the meeting. He gives Ohno a sympathetic smile. Ohno returns with a light nod, and goes back to his presentation notes.

He finds himself thinking that his ghost can stay as long as it wants.

***

Ohno shuts the door of the locker, pitches his head forward, his forehead meeting the metal with a clang. It hurts, just as Ohno was expecting it to.

Ohno assesses his motivations, tries to understand why he likes his ghost so much.

Is it because Ninomiya is devastatingly handsome? Is it because as a ghost, Ninomiya takes Ohno’s subconscious into a realm of pleasure that, as Aiba warned, is dangerously addictive?

Ohno isn’t sure.

Sho had said something once, something that gave Ohno an insight into his own personality. They’d been at some kind of function, and someone they’d known from the academy had commented how unlikely it was that laid-back, scrape-through-all-the-tests Ohno was working in a department as demanding as criminal investigation.

Sho then said that once Ohno got interested in something, he’d fixate on it, give it his all. Conversely, if he didn’t have any interest in something, he’d write it off completely. That’s why he made a good detective—he obsessed efficiently.

Ohno finally sees it.

He’s obsessed with his ghost.

***

“And we’re out of cobalt grey,” says Ohno, putting down the coloured pencil that he’s sharpened to a stub.

The next picture is progressing very slowly. Ohno can’t for the life of him tell what it is. He’s drawn shapes. That’s the best he can describe it.

As the rave that parties through his senses starts winding down, Ohno's head gets clear enough to think about Ninomiya’s home, about the room he hasn’t visited, about the address he found on the cardboard box of produce.

Very purposefully, he closes his sketchbook.

***

It’s the bedroom, as expected. The room is clean and organised, with everything kept into closets, shelves and plastic drawers.

Ohno sees a set of Social Studies textbooks for junior high, first through third grade, and some manuals on soft baseball on the desk. A desktop computer sits in the middle of it, and there are sticky memos all around its screen, mostly lesson plan ideas and reminders for appointments.

_Parents holidaying through Kanto (staying over from Thu. 8/3~5)_

_Cover Unit 5 (Looking through History) over Week 10-11. Order of eras—pop quiz next week_

_(1-F missing Friday period, give them quiz on Wednesday—prepare them in advance)_

_Change timing for Captain’s annual checkup. Call vet by this weekend to confirm._

_MAGNETS: red, blue, yellow, green. + 1 more colour. (Purple?) For Year 2 Global Industries unit._

_Barbecue with Heisei 29 graduates at Terrace 99. First? Second? Saturday of August. Arimura to update in LINE group._

_IMPORTANT: Fortress of Volaris pre-order 7/24 00:00!!!!!! (Use Rakuten points!!)_

Ohno’s heart clenches as he reads Ninomiya’s scrawl. The notes are so terribly, delightfully mundane, yet they tell Ohno so much.

Ohno resists the urge to keep one, takes a deep breath, and steps away into the past.

***

It’s a winter morning in 2005.

Shima 1-2-3 is situated right off the main street of the Koriyama city centre, and it throws Ohno off when the first thing he sees is a forklift _inside_ the house.

Ohno blinks. It’s not really a house—through the half-raised shutters, he’s sees a stockroom where steel racks line the walls, cardboard boxes shelved neatly on them.

He walks in. There’s a man, about his height, with silver hair and reading glasses, peering down at a clipboard as he glances up at a shelf.

There is a pattering sound, and Ohno turns to see two Shiba Inu crossing the room, their paws clacking against the linoleum. They’ve come from another door at the back of the room. A man in overalls enters, following the dogs, and through the open door, Ohno can hear some male voices amidst the sound of intermittent drilling.

Ohno wonders if he’s at the wrong place. Perhaps the Ninomiyas didn’t live here in 2005. He backtracks and looks around, then he sees it.

On the roof, there’s a sign that reads:

_Ninomiya Industrial Materials Co., Ltd._

Ohno’s mouth rounds as he nods, figuring it out. They run a family business. Ohno spots a path paved with flagstones by the side of the building, follows it, finally happens upon the main door. There’s a name plate bearing seven names, all of them starting with Ninomiya.

 _Ninomiya Kazunari_ is the last one.

Ohno exhales in the relief of not having made a futile trip and enters the house. He’s immediately greeted by a flight of stairs. It doesn’t seem like there are any rooms connected to the entryway, so he starts climbing.

There’s no particular reason for Ohno to have chosen this date. He’s just curious to know how Ninomiya is like as a person, how he lived, what kind of environment he grew up in. Since Ohno doesn’t know where Ninomiya attended university (yet), he’s decided to visit the time where Ninomiya was still most likely to be living at his parents house: high school.

It wasn’t hard to figure out his age. The insurance form had Ninomiya’s date of birth written on it.

Ohno ascends the last step and finds himself on a tiny landing that joins up to a door.

On the other side of the door is a living room. The TV is on, and now Ohno can be sure the lady from the picture is definitely Ninomiya’s mother because she’s here, sitting on the sofa and folding a stack of laundry.

“Nice to meet you. Sorry to bother you.” Ohno bows to her.

Her eyes never leave her task nor the screen.

The local time is 9:37 AM. It’s a school day; Ninomiya won’t be home.

Ohno’s quite particular about avoiding Ninomiya. Why, he can’t exactly say, but the very thought of visiting Ninomiya in the past for the sole purpose of observing him makes Ohno break into an uncomfortable sweat. He’s a cop, not some sort of voyeur.

Ohno heads for the rooms. There are four doors for him to choose from. He pokes his head past one, quickly ducks out when he sees the underwear and clothes strewn across the bed, deduces that Ninomiya very likely has a sister.

Ohno puts his head past the second door. The room is empty except for one exercise bike. Not this one either.

Ohno moves on to the next room across the hall. It’s the master bedroom, which leaves the remaining room to be Ninomiya’s. Ohno strides confidently through the wall. 

He lets out a soft cry as he discovers Ninomiya ensconced in his bed, fast asleep.

Very gingerly, Ohno steps closer. There’s a cooling patch pasted across Ninomiya’s forehead. Ohno sees the thermometer and the satchets of pills on the floor by the bed; Ninomiya is at home because he’s sick.

In his worry, Ohno forgets about his struggles over his quasi-voyeurism and bends over Ninomiya’s sleeping form, reaching out to feel for Ninomiya’s fever.

He retracts his hand when he remembers he won’t be able to feel anything, and scolds himself because even if he could, he shouldn’t.

Ninomiya’s eyelids flutter open.

For a moment Ohno contemplates going to another time, but there’s something about the 17-year-old Ninomiya being sick in bed that awakens some sort of instinct in Ohno, making him feel almost parental in his concern. It roots him to the spot, makes him want to stay by Ninomiya’s side.

He bravely hovers his hand over Ninomiya’s cheek.

Like that time on the train, Ninomiya seems to have a knack for looking in Ohno’s direction despite his intangibility, and today is no exception. It’s only for the briefest of moments, though, and Ohno instinctively makes a move to catch Ninomiya as the boy practically heaves himself off the bed—but it’s just so he can grab the thermometer.

Ninomiya groggily takes his own temperature. Ohno scrambles to the shorter side of the bed so he can see the numbers on the digital display—they climb and climb, and finally peak at 39.2 degrees Celsius.

Ninomiya pulls the thermometer out of his mouth, sighs resignedly. He pulls the cooling patch off his forehead and replaces it with a fresh one. Stuffing a hand under his pillow, he shifts onto his side and closes his eyes, tucking his chin under the blankets, looking very vulnerable.

Ohno’s heart aches involuntarily. He bends over the bed and does his best to pat Ninomiya on the head.

Ninomiya’s eyes crack open again, meeting Ohno’s.

Thinking that Ninomiya has somehow found him out, Ohno springs away from the bed—then he realises Ninomiya just wants to take a drink of water.

Ohno sighs in relief.

“Rest well,” whispers Ohno, as the room fades away.

***

After getting so personal with Ninomiya, Ohno finds out that curiosity trumps malaise—he wants to learn more about Ninomiya, even if it entails being in the same room as him. Ohno ventures into an afternoon in 1997, wanting to catch a glimpse of Ninomiya’s childhood.

He’s kept himself in Ninomiya’s bedroom. He gets more time in ghost mode if he doesn’t move through space that much.

The bed is smaller, making the room look larger. The place is also a lot messier, and Ohno notes that the computer and the shelf of games that was in the teenaged Ninomiya’s room is missing from this one. What he has, though, is an impressive collection of game cartridges, two different hand-held consoles Ohno doesn’t recognise (Ohno’s eyes widen as he realises they’re made by Sega and Nintendo respectively—Sega made consoles?—these are practically _antiques_ ) and about a dozen packs of unopened batteries in two different sizes.

This kid takes his gaming seriously.

Ohno’s head snaps back as he hears the door click open and slam shut, and a small, wiry boy is sinking to the floor. He sits with his knees bent, arms folded upon them, hiding his head in the space they provide. He’s sobbing, and Ohno is alarmed.

“Kazu?” comes a female voice from the other side of the door. A knock. “Kazu, what happened?”

“Nothing!” shouts Ninomiya, though it obviously isn’t. “Leave me alone!”

They’re sounding very local, and Ohno takes a while to figure out what they’re saying. He has little experience with Fukushima dialect. 

He steps out into the corridor, sees Ninomiya’s mum. She’s in a pair of overalls that are streaked with grease marks, and when he sees her face Ohno feels wretched and helpless because he can’t comfort her.

“Kaa-san.”

Ninomiya’s mother turns towards the voice, and his sister comes into view. She’s wearing a _randoseru_ backpack, but in her hand she’s towing another. She trudges over, saying:

“He’s lucky I chose to take his route home today. I shouted at the boys and they ran—they totally thought I was their teacher. But our idiot started running too—”

“ _Junna_ ,” says Mrs Ninomiya sharply, and the sister looks apologetic as her mother pulls her away from the door, out of Ninomiya’s earshot. Ohno follows them.

“Sorry. Look, he didn’t even grab his stuff.”

Junna holds up the bag in her hand.

“Not sure if I got all his things. They were strewn all over the playground. There’s some sand in his bag, sorry—that one’s my fault. I didn’t pat down his books.”

Mrs Ninomiya gives Junna a squeeze on the shoulder. Ohno doesn’t stay to listen to the rest of their conversation as he ducks back into Ninomiya’s room again.

It’s upsetting. Ninomiya’s only nine. Nine-year-olds should be carefree, not getting their schoolbooks scattered in sandpits by bullies.

Ohno squats in front of Ninomiya and squares his jaw. He says:

“You’re going to grow up to be an amazing teacher with a very cute dog and students who love you so much they invite you to barbecues even after they graduate. You’re going to get a stupidly high score on a game called _Pazudora_. You’re going to own so many games by high school, they fill up an entire wall.

You’re going to be fine.”

Ninomiya raises his tear-streaked face to him, lips parted in a sob.

Feeling caught, Ohno returns the wide-eyed stare, but of course it’s just Ninomiya coming up for air; his face crumples again, and fresh tears squeeze out of the corners of his eyes.

Ohno inches forward on his haunches, places his hands close to Ninomiya’s shaking shoulders.

“You’ll be fine.”

***

Ohno travels years on some nights.

He’s there when Ninomiya’s grandfather passes away when he’s in university, there on the train with him as he rushes home from Tokyo for the funeral.

He’s there clapping when Ninomiya celebrates his first victory as a regular on his high school baseball team, there when he’s the only one not crying with his teammates three summers later as they lose their chance to go to Koushien, there beside him when he cries alone in his room.

Ohno starts calling him ‘Nino’, because that’s what everybody calls him. He also downloads an app that teaches him the Fukushima dialect.

Ohno is there when Nino inadvertently spits out some Valentine’s Day chocolate in front of the female classmate who gave it to him, exclaiming how salty it is, before looking absolutely mortified as he realises how much he’s devastating the girl.

Ohno laughs so hard he almost passes out.

He’s there when Nino fails the civil servant qualification exam for Tokyo and Kanagawa, there cheering along when Nino tears up in joy upon discovering he passed the one for Chiba.

Ohno is there when Nino’s made the coach of the baseball team at Kujukuri Junior High, there when he chaperones his captain and co-captain to a regional youth leaders’ meeting and they find a litter of abandoned puppies on the way home, one of which he keeps and names ‘Captain’.

Ohno is there every single time Nino attempts to come out to his family. He finally manages to do it when he’s 26. They don’t seem to love him any less.

Ohno is there when Nino searches for his entrance exam registration number on the board outside Hitotsubashi University, there when he shouts in surprise upon finding it, there when he graduates from the Faculty of Social Sciences four years later.

There are times where Ohno regrets being there, however.

Ohno hadn’t realised the guy Nino kept hanging out with in his second year of university had actually been his boyfriend, and when he walked in on them kissing and undressing each other on Nino’s sofa, Ohno had bolted.

Ohno avoided visiting the entire year they were together. He stayed by Nino’s side as much as he could when he gamed through the breakup.

Ohno also kept away for months after he saw Nino bringing someone he was dating up to his apartment.

Tonight, Ohno experiences yet another one of these incidents. He comes back from 2016 and tries to calm down, closes his eyes, remains very still.

It’d been one of those times where Ohno could almost trick himself into believing Nino knew he was there. He remembers the way Nino’s eyes fell on him when he entered the room, the way his lips parted, the sound of his breath quickening as he pumped himself harder.

And Ohno had _watched_. It’d been all of ten seconds but it didn’t make it any less wrong.

If Captain hadn’t yelped from the other room, Ohno would probably have stayed even longer.

Ohno can feel ghost-Nino reaching out to him, trying to engage him. Ohno finds that he can’t face Nino right now, regardless of what form he’s in, and especially not when Ohno’s still throbbing between his thighs.

With all the willpower he can muster he rejects the ghost’s advances, even uttering a ‘not now’ as he walks away from the room. It doesn’t follow.

Law enforcement officers are sworn into a code of strict moral conduct. Ohno has violated his oath. Though there isn’t any legislation to enforce it yet, intruding on someone’s privacy, even in the past, could get him suspended if he gets found out.

Ohno’s been justifying his actions with this grey area of the law for days; tonight’s incident has helped him see where the line should lie.

Ohno decides he’s had enough with walking in on Nino’s private moments. He can’t bear to give it all up—he still wants to see Nino again—but he’s never going to visit Nino at home anymore.

***

“Miyake-san and Yamada-kun will be verifying our investigation report,” says Jun during their meeting with said Team A members, who are also present.

They’ve almost finished cracking the Kataumi case; the tycoon’s wife and the butler have been brought in for what seems to be the final round of questioning.

“What exactly is the Chief asking for?” asks Sho.

Miyake, the Team A officer who’s working the closest with them on the case, gives an apologetic grimace.

“It’s tedious, but because of the unseen nature of the evidence the Chief wants you guys to bring us to every checkpoint, the ones that incriminate the wife and the butler, basically…”

Ohno is only half-listening. He’s thinking about what he did last night, feels his cheeks burn in guilt and, to his horror, _fondness_ at the memory of seeing Nino naked from the waist down—

“Ohno-san,” calls Jun, sounding cross.

Ohno knows he’s in trouble. It’s not because the Team A members are here that Jun is calling him ‘Ohno-san’; Jun only uses it when he’s fucking things up. (It’s ‘Ohno-kun’ otherwise.)

“Sorry. The wife and butler…?” says Ohno lamely, grasping at straws.

“I said, do you think it’s more efficient to fact check in chronological order or the reverse?”

“…Fact check?”

Jun stares at him, his gaze piercing. Ohno feels the dread turning in his stomach. Yup, he’s definitely fucking up.

“Right—so we’re to bring you guys to every incriminating event that led up to the murder.” Sho gestures to Miyake and Yamada, discreetly intervening. “Ohno-kun, do you think you can manage zipping back to the present between every event so we can go forward in time, or would it be easier to visit the events in reverse?”

Ohno shoots Sho a grateful look. “If it’s just a touch-and-go at every checkpoint I can do it chronologically, though the more people I have to bring the faster the concealment runs out.”

They continue their discussion, and Ohno tries his best to concentrate but they’re going over the same points again and again. He really hates meetings. He wants to be someplace else, someplace Nino is.

Ohno then feels Sho tapping on his elbow, and he looks up to find Yamada peering at him from across the table.

“Um, Senpai? May you shed some light on that?”

Ohno flushes. He doesn’t even know Yamada had asked him something.

Yamada, however (bless his soul), reads the delay and supplies Ohno with his question.

“I was thinking about how we’re going to visit the same places you did, and I was wondering—if the same people travel to the same point in the past twice, doesn’t that mean they will meet themselves? Shouldn’t that be something to avoid?”

Ohno nods. “It is something to avoid. However if they were rendered—you know, ghost mode—it is fine then. You won’t be able to perceive yourself.”

“I’ve been on assignments before,” Miyake interjects, “to the past and I recall that rendering takes longer if there are more people.” He finishes on a query. “Wouldn’t we be able to see our un-rendered selves, if that were to happen?”

“When we have to visit a time twice or more, we ensure our arrival destination is different from the previous ones to prevent us from spotting ourselves,” replies Jun. “It’s a little inconvenient and requires more planning, but multiple trips don’t happen often anyway.”

Ohno gives Jun an appreciative nod. Jun’s nod back seems a little blander than usual.

The meeting proceeds with no further hitches, but after it ends Jun beckons Ohno into another conference room, retains Sho, and turns on his heel, looking perplexed.

“I’m not angry,” Jun assures Ohno preemptively. “I just want to know what’s going on, why you’re so unfocused.”

Ohno knows Jun hates to play the _I’m-saying-this-as-your-team-leader_ card, and this is as hard for Jun as it is for him.

“You’ve been quiet,” Sho weighs in, “quieter than usual. We’re just worried for you.”

Ohno avoids looking at either of them in the eyes.

“I’ve known you for almost ten years and I’ve never seen you so out of it.” Jun continues.

“And believe me, we’ve seen you out of it,” adds Sho.

“It isn’t just today. Last week your lack of attention caused you to miscalculate the time we had left on ghost mode and we were nearly visible to an entire street.” Jun’s rant is far from finished. “Your paperwork has gotten really sloppy and you drift off in meetings. Sure you slack off sometimes, but not like this. You’ve never slipped up this shittily before.”

Jun takes a deep breath to exhale in finality: “Seriously. Oh-chan—what is going on?”

“I don’t have a good reason. Just excuses,” mumbles Ohno.

Jun shrugs. “Then give us your excuses.”

Ohno thinks about the time travel he’s done in private over the past few weeks, how he just wants to spend as much time as he can around Nino, how he doesn’t stop thinking about him.

“I can’t,” answers Ohno, “but I promise it won’t happen again.”

Jun sighs and sits heavily in a chair. He pinches the bridge of his nose, massages it as he contemplates what Ohno has said.

“Sorry, Oh-chan. I shouldn’t have called your work shitty,” says Jun in apology.

“You weren’t wrong.” Ohno shakes his head.

“Still.” Jun gets up from his seat, gives Ohno a friendly pat on the arm. “We’ll meet again at five-thirty to discuss the logistics of the trip,” Jun says over his shoulder as he leaves the room.

“If you need us…” Sho gives Ohno’s shoulder a squeeze and follows Jun out.

Ohno’s got a stack of reports to finish, but he doesn’t leave the room. His work desk in the office is adjoined to Sho’s and facing Jun’s; it feels rather awkward to be in the same space with them immediately after the exchange they’ve just had.

He chooses a chair to sit in, leans deep into it and ponders the ceiling.

His partners—his _friends_ —hadn’t said anything about the ghost, and it makes him feel like a dick. They are trying to be considerate, trying to show him they care and all he is does is to shut them out.

Ohno knows he can’t tell Jun and Sho what he’s done. Even if they don’t judge him for it, it’ll make things weird.

He likes being around Nino, hearing his voice, seeing him laugh; drawing with Nino makes him feel closer to him. He can’t explain why he feels this way, not when it baffles even him.

More bizarrely, even after what happened last night, he’s still unable to completely pull himself away from Nino. Instead he’s chosen to make Nino's apartment off-limits to himself, when the right decision would be to leave Nino alone completely.

Ohno wonders if he can live the rest of his life like this, in a past that isn’t even his own.

It scares him when he realises he wants to.


	3. Chapter 3

Every day on his way home Ohno passes through the beach park, where there’s a monumental timepiece built into the ground to commemorate those who lost their lives in the Battle of Kujukuri.

It’s different from most memorials of its kind, since it lacks an upright structure. From a distance it’s just a two-feet tall, round marble platform; but as one approaches they will be able to see the enormous clock face, half the size of a tennis court, that makes up the surface of the monument.

Each of the hands bears inscriptions in remembrance of different groups of people—the hour hand represents the members of the Defence Forces who responded to the attack, the minute hand for the underground Prior organisations who joined the fight, and the second hand is for all the innocent lives that were lost.

Because of its size, it’s not uncommon for people to skirt the monument to get to the other side, and some older folk would stop in the middle to press their hands together and say a prayer.

This evening, Ohno finds himself at the edge of the memorial, watching the second hand tick.

He’s never needed a watch or a clock. He’s able to grasp the time of any environment, right down to the fraction of a millisecond. He remembers every day he’s visited, everything he experiences during his time there. It’s the reason why he doesn’t need a journal to keep track of where he’s been in the past. He can call the information up whenever he wants to.

Time is like his oldest, most sensible best friend. Time has never sabotaged him. Time has always served his purposes. It is always on his side, as long as he sticks to its rules.

Ohno’s mouth falls open as he strikes upon a theory.

***

They’re meeting at a cafe not too far from the beach park. Aiba spots Ohno waving and hurries over.

“Hi. Um, you didn’t tell Sho-chan about this, right?”

Aiba shakes his head, swings his messenger bag into the booth before sliding in after it.

“You’re my client, Ohno-san. Sakurai-kun isn’t.” Aiba gives Ohno a reassuring smile.

“Thanks for meeting me at such short notice.” Ohno nods.

“No problem, it’s still business hours. What’s up?”

There is a pause. Ohno pushes his empty curry bowl to the side, props an elbow on the table and curls his fingers in front of his mouth, hiding half his face with his hand.

He feels like he’s entered a confessional.

“When we first met, you mentioned that unless we can change the way they died, ghosts will never rest in peace. Do you remember?” The words come out muffled as he presses his bent forefinger against his lips.

“I don’t think I meant that literally, Ohno-san.” 

“You know I can travel into the past?” Ohno takes a deep breath.

“You can?” Aiba’s eyes blink widely.

“Sho-chan didn’t tell you?” Ohno asks in surprise.

“He’s never said anything about it. I asked once—he said he doesn’t know if it’s okay to tell me because you’re one of those special Prior officers and the police have rules for that?”

Ohno can’t help but feel proud of Sho.

“I can’t tell you exactly what I do, but it’s okay for you to know that I can travel back in time.” Ohno’s mouth feels like sandpaper, and he licks his lips nervously. “Hypothetically speaking, and don’t read too much into this—if I were to go into the past and change how my ghost died, would that affect its existence as a ghost?”

Ohno worries his lip as he sees Aiba’s expression falter. It becomes one of sympathy and understanding, and suddenly Ohno feels naked.

He’s pretty sure Aiba has read too much into it.

A chime from the interactive menu beside them disrupts their meaningful silence, and a soothing voice informs them in the politest way that orders can be placed via the touchscreen, and _every customer at the table is required to make one order_. Picking up on the emphasis, Aiba quickly calls up the cafe’s selection of beverages.

Ohno’s feels his anxiety building as he waits for Aiba to finish ordering a macchiato.

“You know that Dragon Ball Kid story?” asks Aiba as he hits the confirmation button.

Ohno blinks. “Every time-travelling Prior knows that story.”

There’s a mischievous gleam in Aiba’s eye. “Bet you don’t know there was a Part Two. I heard a lot of time travellers don’t know about it, because the one who was involved never told anyone what he did.”

Ohno feels his pulse regulating; Aiba’s keeping the conversation light, and Ohno is grateful for it.

“I’m all ears.”

Aiba drops his voice. “So. Dragon Ball Kid haunted his parents, you know. Kept them at home and made them clean the house all day.”

“ _What?_ ” Ohno tries very hard not to laugh in his disbelief, fails.

“Yeah. Not that funny when you really think about it. I mean, you should know, with your own encounter.”

“Right.” Ohno gives a hesitant nod.

“Shame, though. I honestly believe he wouldn’t have died if he had a mentor. It was a complete oversight, the whole killing himself thing, and it made the shock of dying a lot worse. Thirteen and thinking of that idea… He must’ve been smart. Horribly ill-informed, but smart.”

Ohno bobs his head in agreement, remembers that Dragon Ball Kid had lived in the ‘90s, when there still wasn’t enough literature on Priors; in fact, the word ‘Prior’ had only just been coined. The system that Ohno (and very likely Aiba as well) grew up with, the whole DNA testing, support hotline, mentor-mentee thing, had only come about in 2010. Before that, Priors had approached learning about their powers in a very solitary, trial-and-error way.

“Anyway, his parents had this idea—surely there was someone like him, they thought. Surely there was someone who could travel back in time, back to his death, to prevent it. They went on the internet, posted in some forums, and someone responded.”

Ohno wrinkles his nose. “Was he even a real Prior? They had a lot of hoaxes back then, right?”

“Oh, he was. One of those two-way ones.”

Ohno laughs at the way Aiba is putting it. “We call them ‘fluid’, Aiba-san.”

“Fancy. But no matter, because he couldn’t do it. Eventually Dragon Ball Kid’s parents came to my company to request for an extraction. The circumstances were quite unique, so the founder of my company interviewed them and recorded everything.

“According to the parents, the time traveller they engaged took them along to the past, where they all convinced Dragon Ball Kid to go back to the present and try to get through the school day with no sleep. However, the one in the past still died. Same time, same position, same stab wound, everything.

“They tried so many things, like going further back in the past to warn an even earlier version of the kid about the whole thing, but it still happened. He just kept dying.”

Aiba pauses. “Can I ask you something about time travellers that’s always bugged me?”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to answer, but sure, go ahead.”

“I’ve always thought there’s got to be a reason why he didn’t do it—that guy, why didn’t he try to bring the Dragon Ball Kid in the past back with him into the present, or plant him in the future? I know Dragon Ball Kid’s powers didn’t include travelling into the future, but that Prior’s did.”

“Ah. It’s a rule of time travel. We can’t physically move someone or something from a time that isn’t ours. Once I tried to go back in time to get a piece of homework I forgot at home. It didn’t come with me.”

“But when you travel to the past, that becomes your time too, doesn’t it?”

“No. There’s this invisible timestamp, I can’t really explain it, this _mechanism_ that anchors us to where we’re originally from. It’s to prevent us from getting lost, I guess.”

“So… The guy was able to bring Dragon Ball Kid’s parents to the past with him because they were from his time. Not because he actually had the ability to move people around history.”

“That’s right.”

“I see.” Aiba thumps his fist in his palm. “That’s a mystery solved!”

“So what happened in the end?”

“Well, the Prior couldn’t do anything to help, so eventually the parents gave up. There was nothing else they could do to help him rest in peace. Also they were really sick of polishing their floors.”

The interactive menu plays a melody just as Aiba ends his story, and the two men draw back from the tabletop as a portion of it slides open to reveal a recess, Aiba’s coffee emerging from it. Aiba grabs the mug and presses a button to send the lift back down.

Ohno hums. “I wonder why that Prior never shared his experience with anyone else.”

“Well, he couldn’t deliver—it was embarrassing for your lot. I’m not surprised he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“We’re not that close-knit a community to begin with.” Ohno puts on his most innocent look, scratches his nose. “Unlike you guys, we’re totally open to marrying people outside our tribe.”

There’s a pause before Aiba breaks out into a stuttering, wheezy laugh. It’s so infectious, Ohno finds himself laughing as well.

“I haven’t heard that one in years,” says Aiba, eyes crinkling as he grins. “God, all those Prior jokes. There was that really awful one about people with terrakinetic powers? The one with the light bulb?”

Ohno starts to laugh as he remembers. “Ask an earth manipulator how many of them are needed to earth a light bulb, and he’ll smugly answer: _Just one_.”

Aiba nods vigorously, flings a finger in Ohno’s direction and together they chorus:

“But who the hell earths a light bulb?!”

They both dissolve into giggles, Ohno forgetting his woes in that brief moment. He finds Aiba incredibly likeable. He knows that if they’d met under different circumstances, if Aiba’s job didn’t include potentially erasing ghost-Nino from his life, they could most definitely be friends.

“Oh, crap.” Aiba shoots Ohno an apologetic look, remembering the purpose of their meeting. “Sorry, we’re still having our consultation, I should be more serious.”

“Ah, no. Thanks for the laugh.”

“To summarise,” Aiba clears his throat in an effort to regain composure, “no. I doubt trying to alter the death will affect your ghost’s existence. I’m sorry.”

Ohno nods. He already knew what the conclusion would be when Aiba spoke of the failed attempts to thwart Dragon Ball Kid’s murder-suicide.

“Are you okay?” Aiba looks at Ohno with the kindest, kindest eyes.

Now Ohno is tempted to tell Aiba everything—Aiba, who’s neither friend nor stranger; Aiba, who knows enough about the dead and the living and Priors to figure things out without Ohno having to be embarrassingly explicit. It’d take such a weight off his shoulders, if he told Aiba.

“I’m fine.” Ohno offers Aiba a smile. “Thanks for the consultation, I’ll transfer the fees to your bank account tonight.”

A flicker of understanding crosses Aiba’s face.

“Thank you,” is all Aiba says, and he fills in the ensuing silence by finishing his coffee.

There’s a part of Ohno that wants to hit himself. He’s missed his chance. But Ohno isn’t brave enough to confess that he is, essentially, a stalker.

Ohno’s face burns as he thinks this. He doesn’t have to confess all the details of what he does during his trips to the past, but the fact that he’s used his powers to intrude on a person’s privacy is contemptible. Meeting Aiba makes Ohno think about how the Prior community at large would view him.

“Ah, no, wait—” Ohno hurriedly pulls out his wallet as he realises Aiba has just tapped his smart card against the payment page of the interactive menu.

Aiba gently pushes Ohno’s hand away. “It’s on me. I think I broke some bad news to you tonight. This is my compensation.”

Ohno feels a warmth welling up in his chest. Aiba’s probably figured something out—not surprising, given his intuition and experience—but he’s not calling Ohno out on it.

“What would you do if it were you?” Ohno hears himself asking.

Aiba’s expression softens. “If I had a ghost in my apartment I can’t bear to remove?”

Ohno swallows the lump in his throat, nods.

Aiba considers this for a moment. “Do you remember when I first met you, you tried to show me the pictures you’d drawn of the ghost’s last day?”

Ohno remembers. “Yeah, you didn’t want to look at them.”

“Do you know why?”

Ohno’s eyes stray as he searches for an answer. “You… don’t like art?”

“It’s because,” Aiba chuckles shaking his head, “I don’t want to know the ghost. It’s a precaution. What if it’s my third cousin? An ex? It’d be hard to perform the extraction—I’m better off ignorant. I’ve had encounters in the past. A case I had to outsource because I realised I’d known them when they were alive.” He gives Ohno a grim smile. “More whose identities I found out after the extraction. It’s always painful, always gives me bad dreams for weeks.

“I want to protect the living, protect their futures, because they’re here in the now. My clients—you included—are suffering every day the haunting takes place. Even if you’re oblivious to it, even if the ghost has pure intentions, it’s still abuse. Think about it—mind control, sleep deprivation, crazy high dopamine levels? It’s not natural for the living, no matter how you try to rationalise it.”

Ohno doesn’t like the word ‘abuse’, and he’s pretty sure it’s showing on his face as he struggles to come to terms with what Aiba is saying.

“But they have feelings—you said so.”

“Yes, but it’s a compromised sentience,” says Aiba, his voice gentle. “Ghosts aren’t who they were when they were alive. They’ve lost their memories, and with them their experiences, their personalities. They don’t understand the world anymore. The dead are gone, Ohno-san. Their souls shouldn’t be here,” Aiba sighs sadly, “they should have gone with them. That is what’s natural. For them.”

Ohno feels his obstinacy dwindle, feels resignation seep in. He knows he’s made the mistake of treating the ghost and Nino as one and the same. He feels silly now, like he’s missed the signs. The ghost has none of Nino’s personality. He should’ve known better.

But without the ghost, he’d never have met Nino.

Ohno can sense Aiba’s worry as he dumps his face into his palm. But Ohno has no room in his heart for caring about how Aiba sees him, because right now, as he thinks of Nino as _Nino_ , separate from the ghost, he’s assailed by one heavy realisation.

He’s in love.

It’s a turbulent feeling, this knowing. There’s relief and joy and wonder, because he now knows he doesn’t have a strange obsession with a ghost, just love for a person, an actual person who lived.

Ohno’s loved before, but it’s taken him this long to recognise this feeling because he’s been distracted by the haunting and the guilt of abusing his powers, all noise. Now that it’s revealed itself, he finally can confront its futility and pain, because it isn’t a love that he can pursue.

It hurts, knowing Nino’s time is over.

***

As far as he’s concerned, time is linear for Ohno. It’s the only way he’s travelled, the only way he knows how. And it’s this that helps him understand the current complexity of Nino’s mortality: there are, fundamentally, two versions of Nino existing within a single span of time.

At one point in the past, one is living. The other, existing in the present, is not.

As he walks home, Ohno thinks about all that he’s learnt from Aiba, thinks he finally gets it: at the point in time when death claimed Nino, he ceased to become the Nino that Ohno has come to love.

Ohno reckons it might still be Nino, but a different one. At the very moment he became a ghost, because of all these rules of the spirit world, Nino had _no choice_ but to retain those final memories. He was stuck with only the experiences of that one day.

Nino lived for 29 years. Ohno has a pretty good idea of what happened in those 29 years, and to think that they’re all gone, to know that he’s now surviving without everything that’s made him who he is…

Ohno doesn’t know if that fragment of Nino is worth keeping.

It’s ironic, really. Before Ohno realised he had feelings for Nino, he fought so hard to keep the ghost’s soul whole. Now that he’s in love with Nino, he’s actually considering letting the ghost go.

There’s only one argument working for ghost-Nino’s cause: its memories, however sparse, represent living-Nino’s identity within ghost-Nino. There is still some Nino in there, the only bit of Nino that’s left on this earth.

Surely that is worth something?

Ohno reaches the door of his apartment, scans his token against the reader and punches in the numeric code. There’s a series of clicks and whizzes, and after a beep Ohno pushes open the door.

He’s greeted by a powerful, profound emotion, a mixture of sadness and fear, and it floods him with so much despair that he can barely breathe as he feels the lump swelling in his throat, the stinging behind his nose.

As tears drip off his chin and Ohno is tugged towards his sketchbook, he struggles to make sense of it all—is Nino’s ghost picking up on his intent to surrender him to Aiba? Is it that acute in its perception of Ohno’s dilemma?

Ohno lets the ghost sweep him into its dark fantasy of imperceptible foggy hues and jagged edges, and it isn't until he starts flecking white ink onto a narrow strip of midnight blue that he finally realises what they’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

Nino is showing Ohno how he died.

***

Visiting Nino on his last day has been something Ohno’s been putting off for ages. He’s told himself he doesn’t need to see it, doesn’t need to experience the day and its horrific end.

But tonight, as Ohno lies in bed unable to sleep, he knows he should be there, watching Nino.

Watching _over_ Nino.

Nino wouldn’t even know he’s there, like how he’s never known, but it’s not so much for Nino as it is for himself. Ohno has claimed a strange right to being Nino’s invisible and silent companion during his highs and lows in life; to let Nino die alone when he could be there makes Ohno feel like he’s abandoning Nino on purpose.

Ohno swings his legs off the side of his mattress, sits up.

There are a few things to decide. First, is he going to do this chronologically? He’d have to warp back and forth between the present and the past, expending more energy and shortening the overall time he can stay concealed.

Alternatively, he could do it in reverse and immediately visit Nino at the place where he’d been crushed by rubble.

Ohno isn’t ready for that, not from the get-go.

He could also spend days—weeks, even—on the trip, covering the entire day over a series of visits.

Ohno likes that idea best, but he knows it won’t do him good to drag it out like that. The more time he spends with Nino on that last day, the more his courage to be at Nino’s side when he dies will diminish.

For a very brief moment, Ohno sees the surreality of it all: he’s going back in time to witness the death of the man he loves, and even then he wouldn’t be able to speak to him or hold him. 

And then what? Will he come back and mourn? Or will his life just continue? Will he then be convinced to remove the ghost from his apartment, or let it stay forever? Will he keep visiting Nino in the past, fall harder in love?

Ohno knows the only reason why he isn’t completely devastated by Nino’s death is because he’ll always have access to the past—a place where Nino is, quite literally, immortal.

Ohno changes out of his nightclothes and heads to the craft space. After switching on the lights he picks up the sketchbook, flicks through the drawings, checking the position of the sun wherever he can.

Apart from the pictures, Ohno knows the exact time Nino got on the train, and he also knows what time the attack happened. With these points of reference, Ohno can work out the pockets of time he can save.

In the next moment he’s gone.

***

“God, what did Kaa-san feed you?” says Nino as he crouches to pick up Captain’s mound of poop, cringing as he inverts the plastic bag over his hand.

Captain just looks up at Nino and pants.

Nino fastens the bag, keeping his eyes on the dog.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” He reaches down to scratch Captain’s chin. “You’re the captain of Team Cute, aren’t you, Captain?”

Ohno grins at this. There’s this tenderness, this kindness to Nino, that’s a lot more pronounced when he’s with Captain.

An elderly couple on their morning walk pass by giving Nino a smile of approval, having overheard Nino gush over Captain. He bows his head, embarrassed.

After they leave, Nino turns to Captain and puts a hand on his rump, looking serious. “It’s okay, we have nothing to hide about our relationship.”

Ohno cracks up. Nino always makes him laugh. That’s one of his favourite things about Nino.

Then Captain leaps and wags his tail, making Nino turn to see what he’s so excited about.

It’s Nino’s mother, crossing the grass to join them by the pond. Ohno’s quite fond of Nino’s mother—Nino definitely inherited her sense of humour.

“How could you take Captain out without telling me?” Mrs Ninomiya sounds like she’s grousing, but there’s a smile on her face.

Ever since Nino moved to Chiba, his mother has visited him several times en route to Tokyo, where she’s originally from. She’s one of Captain’s favourite humans, Ohno has noticed.

“I didn’t want to wake you and Tou-san. I could hear you guys snoring.”

“It’s our last day with you, you know we’d want to spend time with you.”

“You mean it’s your last day with Captain,” says Nino as the corners of his lips quirk.

“That, too.” Mrs Ninomiya laughs. “Hey, Captain,” she coos, and Captain bounds up to her before sniffing at her bag. She opens the flap, looking at Nino with a guilty grin and showing him the bag of dog treats she’s brought with her.

“I swear, Kaa-san, he’s gotten fatter since you came.”

“You’re exaggerating, I’ve only been here three days.”

“Exactly.” Nino sighs. “Oh all right, we’ll just make sure he earns it.”

They start walking again, and Mrs Ninomiya reaches for Nino and threads her arm through his.

“Kaa-san. We’re in public. And it’s really hard to walk Captain like this.”

“I can’t touch my son in public?”

“Do you have any idea what you just said…?”

“I only see you three times a year. I get to do this. It’s my parental right.”

Nino then grumbles for the better part of a minute, but Ohno notices he doesn’t try to pull away from his mother. They continue chatting, mainly about how different Captain is from the dogs they had in Fukushima, and when Captain stops for a bathroom break Mrs Ninomiya changes the subject.

“Kazu, I finished reading your draft. I really liked it.”

Nino’s head snaps up, and Ohno interprets the emotion on his face as gratitude.

Ohno is immediately curious—what is this draft?

“It wasn’t too boring? I mean, this theme, it’s been done before…”

“I think the bigger question is,” Mrs Ninomiya drops her voice to a whisper, “How did you know how boys and girls have sex?”

“I’m taking that as a compliment, Kaa-san. Thank you.” Nino throws his head back and laughs. He unhooks his arm from his mother’s and flings it around her shoulders before wincing and pulling back.

“Ew, you’re all sweaty!”

“Well, you’re a very warm child.”

Ohno snorts in laughter. He watches as Nino opens the flap of his mother’s handbag and fishes out her handkerchief, dabbing at her neck.

“I expect you’ll want to get your story printed?” Mrs Ninomiya asks.

“I’ve sent proposals out to a few places, not all of them have responded.” Nino shrugs.

Ohno is surprised. He’s never noticed Nino was writing a novel.

“I’m so excited to see a book with your name on it!”

“Oh, no. I’ll be using a pen name if they accept my draft. It’s not very job-friendly for me. You know how it is. I don’t want to risk getting fired.”

“It’s just one sex scene, for crying out loud!”

Nino makes a move to clap a hand on his mother’s mouth. He looks around, obviously alarmed. “ _Kaa-san_. Keep your voice down. I know people in my neighbourhood, okay?”

“I think it’s more scandalous if they see you arm-in-arm with an older woman in the park.” Mrs Ninomiya makes a face.

Nino retorts with a quip of his own, continuing their humorous banter, and they quicken their pace to keep up with Captain. He’s galloping towards a bunch of petunias.

Ohno wants to follow, wants to learn more about this novel, but he’s on a tight schedule tonight. He still wants to visit all the other events he’s drawn. They’ve become significant, personal even, to Ohno.

Ohno throws Nino, Mrs Ninomiya and Captain one last look over his shoulder. They’re laughing. Even Captain looks like he’s laughing.

Ohno tries to comfort himself with the thought that moments like these all get preserved in time.

***

There are about six hours between the time Nino walks Captain at the park and the time he rides the 2:57 PM train from Togane. Ohno doesn’t know what Nino’s doing in between, so he chooses to visit Nino’s apartment just before noon.

Although just yesterday he told himself he wouldn’t enter the apartment anymore, he figures a peek into the kitchen couldn’t hurt.

The first thing Ohno hears is the rhythmic clopping of a knife on a cutting board. He turns his head to see Nino slicing up some carrot, his father standing behind him, watching him appraisingly.

Ohno hasn’t seen Nino’s dad a lot. He didn’t visit the weekends or evenings of Nino’s childhood very often, and that was the time Nino’s father was at home.

Ohno has gleaned snippets of information about the man from conversations—he’d been a teacher and then a principal, was very hardworking, and contributed to Nino’s decision to become a teacher.

With Mr Ninomiya having a career of his own, Nino’s mother took over the family business after her father passed away. She’d been worried when Nino decided to become a teacher as well, but Junna, Nino’s sister, volunteered to become her mother’s successor.

The family didn’t often express their feelings verbally, but once Ohno visited the Koriyama home over New Year’s and witnessed a rare family meeting, where Nino had explicitly thanked his sister for being the one to keep the business going. They’d all been slightly drunk, and Mr and Mrs Ninomiya had ended up hugging their children as they shed tears.

“What time is the reunion?” Nino asks his father as he bends to retrieve a frying pan from a low cupboard.

“Seven o’clock.” Mr Ninomiya rubs the back of his head, suddenly bashful. “If only I didn’t have to go tonight, we could’ve stayed over the weekend. Such a pity, really.”

“What are you saying, Tou-san? It’s work. You have to impress the alumni. Besides, I’ve to attend a barbecue with my former students. No loss.”

Ohno admires the ease at which they’re conducting their conversation. He sometimes doesn’t know what to talk about with his own dad when they’re alone. He assumes it’s even harder the other way round.

“But you’re getting your car today, aren’t you? If we stayed a little longer we’d be able to ride in it. Such a pity…”

“I get it. You miss me. See, that’s why I’m making lunch for you. I’m so filial.” Nino laughs.

“Don’t lie. You’re just preparing the ingredients.”

“Still a good son.” Nino shrugs. He rinses his hands and walks towards the living room, opens the door to call out: “Kaa-san, the carrots are done.”

“Did you slice and soak the _gobou_?”

Mrs Ninomiya enters the kitchen area and Nino hangs back so it doesn’t get too crowded. She bends over the tiny counter, checking the burdock root.

“Good job,” she says, nodding. She looks up at her husband. “What time do we have to leave?”

“Before one.”

She turns to Nino. “And you?”

“My appointment at the dealership is at three-thirty, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Ohno is grateful that they’re having this conversation. It’s exactly the information he needs.

Mrs Ninomiya hums. “I was going to ask if you want a ride there.”

“I don’t want to get there too early. The place is just a couple of train stops away. I can manage.”

“But the train station is so far away from the apartment. We should give Kazu a lift, right, Kaa-chan?” says Mr Ninomiya, giving his wife a meaningful look.

Nino leans his side against the wall, grinning. “I know you guys want to spend as much time as you can with me, but factoring in the weekend traffic situation I’d rather you leave as early as you can. Tou-san probably has to change into a suit for the event, right? You didn’t bring a suit, did you?”

“This boy, always reading us,” Mr Ninomiya complains.

Just before Ohno warps back into the present Nino says something that makes his heart sink.

“You’ll see me during New Year’s anyway.”

***

At the car dealership, Ohno finds out that Nino hadn’t requested for a backup car because he’d only sold his car two days prior, privately, to a friend living in Tokyo. He didn’t want to have two cars at a time because then he’d have to pay for a parking space.

Ohno can’t help but chuckle at this. Nino isn’t exactly miserly, but he doesn’t seem to be a fan of spending money.

The sales representative in charge of Nino’s account takes him through the paperwork, and Ohno, bored, walks around the showroom, wondering about several things: why cars in 2017 looked so flamboyant, where Nino’s headed to next and what kind of novel Nino had written.

If only he could just sneak in Nino’s room, materialise, power on his computer and read the draft.

He could, of course he could. But he promised he wouldn’t, and Ohno’s really good at keeping promises, especially those he made to himself.

He goes back to Nino’s side. Nino is filling out the form that Ohno had drawn, the one that told Ohno his name.

Ohno discovers looking at the document invokes an emotion very similar to love, only coupled with gratitude and nostalgia. He reaches out to pass a hand through it; as he retracts his hand he brushes his fingertips against Nino’s knuckles, watches him carefully write out his address.

Ohno waits for the procedure to end, and finally Nino is presented with the keys to his new car. Ohno follows as the sales rep leads Nino to the car, heart beating in anticipation and nervousness as he stops to stand in the passenger seat.

There’s a surefire way to determine Nino’s destination: when Nino inputs it into the navigation system. But Nino sometimes drives off before he keys in where he’s going, and that’s frustrating for Ohno because without his work equipment, the only way he can follow Nino is on foot.

Ohno hates running after cars. He’s not the kind of cop (or Prior) that can, and he hopes he doesn’t have to do it today.

He can’t hold himself back from cheering when Nino slips behind the wheel, boots up the navigation system, and starts keying in an address.

***

This was the time that Ohno never really got figured out. There’d been neither sun nor shadow in the picture, and the sky had been blue, blue, blue.

They’re at Nino’s school, and he’s sitting on a bench right outside the gym that affords a view of the entire baseball field. Ohno comes to stand next to him.

Nino isn’t doing anything much, just looking out at the field and mopping his face with the towel that’s around his neck.

Ohno fans him with his hand.

Nino tucks his ankle under the knee of his other leg, slouches. His hands fall loosely into his lap. His eyes drift downward.

He’s probably bored, Ohno thinks, but God—he’s fascinating.

Nino starts humming to himself, and Ohno’s heart twists when he realises it’s a song he knows as well, a Southern All Stars one called _Itoshi no Ellie_.

He’s heard Nino singing to himself before, but never this song. The chorus comes up, and to Ohno’s surprise Nino opens his mouth to sing softly:

“ _Smile more baby, you’re innocently on my mind. Show yourself more baby, I’m wonderfully in your sight_.”

Of all the lyrics Nino could sing…

Ohno wants to hold him.

Ohno has always believed that time travelling Priors had concealment powers for a reason. They wouldn’t have the ability if they were meant to travel in corporeal form. This was why he’d been so judicious with his cloaking, having understood it as the universe’s way of keeping time travellers from harm while preserving the integrity of history.

But one thing has always nagged at him: concealment is a choice. If it was truly the universe’s intention for them to hide themselves in time, why wasn’t it a default setting, coming into place once time travel started? Why was it so dependent on the chemistry of the human body, failing to work when energy levels were depleted?

Were time travellers meant to reveal themselves when they needed to?

Were they meant to alter the course of history, or protect it from change?

Dragon Ball Kid’s parents had tried to prevent his death by going back in time, and it hadn’t worked for them. Wasn’t that proof that history couldn’t be changed?

But Dragon Ball Kid had gone back in time—a time when he had been alive—and killed himself. Didn’t that count as changing history?

Perhaps, somewhere out there, there exists a greater force—something superior to time—controlling how history gets written.

Perhaps that force is death.

“Sensei!” comes a collective shout, interrupting Ohno’s dark train of thought. He turns to see a pack of teenaged boys and a girl surging towards them.

Nino’s eyes turn wide as he points to them, tracing their statures, suddenly dropping his finger as he reaches the girl.

“Arimura, you’ve shrunk!”

They all dissolve into laughter at Nino’s joke, except Arimura, who rolls her eyes and ignores Nino’s comment.

“What, no comeback?”

“High school has changed her, Sensei,” is someone’s sad reply.

One of the boys shout:

“Sensei, want to have a game of catch?”

“No,” Nino answers immediately. “We’ll die of heatstroke.”

They all grin at each other and one of them steps forward, trying to hide a large paper bag behind his back.

“Sensei—” the boy begins, and Ohno notes with surprise that he was one of the team captains that had been with Nino when they found the abandoned pups, _he’s so big now_ , “—we knew you would say that, so here’s something for you.”

Ohno turns to Nino, who’s struggling to keep a straight face. It tickles Ohno every time he sees Nino like that. He has so much joy when he’s with his students.

The boy holds out the paper bag with one hand, and Nino just stares.

“Both hands, dummy,” hisses someone from behind, and the boy hastily adds throws in his other hand to support the base of the bag.

Nino takes the bag and peers into it.

“What’s this for?”

Someone gives a count, and all of them chorus:

“Ninomiya-sensei, happy fortieth—”

“I’M TWENTY-NINE!” roars Nino over their voices, making the teenagers howl in unceremonious laughter. Nino has met their expectations, and then some.

Nino doesn’t hide his own laughter. He pulls out the baseball glove that’s his belated birthday present, announcing that he’s impressed they remembered he’s left-handed. He puts it on and thanks them, sparking applause from his audience.

They crowd around Nino and beg to play for just a few minutes—to work up an appetite for later, one of them says—and Ohno hangs back, watching them run and yell and cheer when Nino relents.

Ohno hates that this won’t last.

***

Ohno arrives back in the present with one more trip to make.

He doesn’t want to go.

He doesn’t want to watch Nino die.

He doesn’t want to be reminded, so painfully, that Nino will never know him.

Ohno picks up the sketchbook, turns the pages to the picture of the sliver of night sky seen through gaps in the debris.

Nino died alone. No one should die alone.

Ohno knows he has to go. Even if Nino doesn’t know Ohno’s there, it doesn’t negate the fact that he’ll be by his side.

As long as he’s there, Nino doesn’t have to die alone.

***

Ohno remembers the place because during a trip with Sho and Jun he’d passed the building with its sign outside the entrance, and it’d rung a bell. He tried to recall where he’d encountered it, then remembered that he’d read about it on Nino’s Post-it memo.

Terrace 99 is crowded tonight. Everyone has the same plan—hang out with friends, barbecue on this rooftop, watch fireworks.

It’s a perfect itinerary.

Nino and his students are at a table in the middle of the terrace. They’re getting ready to leave, and before Nino can stop them the students line up and bow, thanking him loudly for the treat.

The gaggle of inebriated young men and women at a neighbouring table compliment Nino with whooping and applause. Nino waves to them regally, looking very smug. It makes his students laugh.

 _27 seconds_.

Arimura gets her phone out, and she reminds everyone to upload the photos they’ve taken into the group album, not just send them out indiscriminately. Nino asks if that applies to him, since he’s so efficient that he’s already sent out the one he took. Arimura says Nino can be the exception, and the boys start crying foul.

 _13 seconds_.

Fireworks whistle overhead. Ohno sees Nino take his eyes off his students to watch the glittering scarlet, blooming into the sky with a sonorous boom.

The sparks cascade and die.

 _3 seconds_.

Ohno moves to stand as close to Nino as he can.

It happens a lot slower than Ohno imagined. Someone who happens to be looking towards the direction of the beach lets out an ‘Eh?’ as all the lights in that area go out, then the ground starts shaking.

There are cries of ‘Earthquake!’, and people scramble to get under tables while some rush to leave the building, only to be stopped by others who know better. Some are looking at their phones, wondering why the disaster alarm hasn’t gone off.

“Don’t panic, we’re safer on the roof,” Nino tells his students, trying to reassure them. Nino’s holding it together, being the teacher, being the grownup.

It’s 8:43 PM. The first of the aliens have rammed their vehicles up through the bottom of the beach, and there are cracks in the earth extending up to three kilometres inland. In a while there’s going to be a stronger collision that will completely break up the coast and sink part of Chiba into the sea.

The first to respond to the coast guard will be an underground network of Priors. There are several of these groups, guerrilla organisations that few civilians knew existed until they came out of the cracks to take down the aliens.

Now, though, nobody knows anything.

Ohno keeps his eyes on Nino. It’s going to be hard to follow him once the chaos starts.

“When I get older I’m going to move to a country that has no earthquakes,” announces one of Nino’s students, a tremor in his voice.

Ohno watches as someone starts shouting for everyone to start moving to the centre of the terrace because that’s the safest spot, and Nino grabs two of his nearest students protectively as people swarm around them.

It’s heart-wrenching to see, because it’s all going to be futile.

There’s a loud rumble and a lot of screaming as the floor tilts. Buildings around them topple, crumble and fall, the aliens’ vertical battering ram smashing through the foundations.

They’re thrown into an eerie darkness as the power goes out. The only thing that’s providing any illumination are the stars and moon above.

Ohno sees Nino shout for one of his kids, who’s tripped and gotten caught under the feet of the stumbling crowd. Nino scrambles to reach for him, but there’s a sickening crack and the surface that they’re standing on breaks apart, and everyone is falling, shrieking, falling.

It’s horrific. For a moment, Ohno doesn’t know where to look.

Because of the nature of his tangibility, Ohno isn’t subject to the same loss of balance. He's falling, but he’ll land with two feet on the first bit of solid ground he comes into contact with.

Plunging through the air, Ohno can’t stick as close to Nino as he likes, but he doesn’t let Nino out of his sight.

“I’m here,” calls Ohno desperately as he catches a glimpse of Nino’s face, etched with anguish and fear.

Nino lands on his back and is immediately impaled by several rods.

Ohno screams Nino’s name as he sees a wave of broken metal and concrete descending upon Nino’s body, burying him.

Ohno lets out a strangled cry, trying to brake so he can get to Nino, but he can’t stop, he’s still falling.

Bile rises in Ohno’s throat. His picture hadn’t shown this in its ghastly entirety, didn’t tell him Nino had to suffer like that, didn’t prepare enough Ohno for this.

But it did tell him that Nino had been looking up at the night sky through a gap in the wreck.

Nino is very possibly still alive.

Ohno finally lands, and he realises Nino is a good metre or so above him, somewhere near the top of the mound that he’s staring up at.

Any shred of rationality Ohno possessed vanishes as he sheds his concealment and starts to climb, clawing past dusty bricks and still-warm limbs, doing his best to turn a deaf ear to the cries and moans from within the tomb of rubble.

He can’t see very well in the darkness, and he swallows his tears not because he’s mustering courage but because crying will further impair his vision, and he can’t waste anymore time, he can’t let Nino die alone.

“Nino!” Ohno cries out as something under his feet gives. He quickly conceals himself, teetering as his hands turn intangible and lose purchase. Half the mound slides downward, sending debris rushing through Ohno. Bodies tumble out of the wreckage, and Ohno turns away as he glimpses their faces, their glassy eyes reflecting the moonlight.

He regains balance, though just barely, and materialises again when the dust settles, beginning his ascent once more.

He somehow makes it to the top.

“Nino,” Ohno calls, and he’s on all fours, removing fragments of concrete and slabs of wood away from the spot where he thinks he remembers Nino to be, but he can’t seem to find him. Ohno pats the surface with his hands, hoping to find a gap, cursing the darkness.

Then his fingers grasp air.

Ohno reaches in, presses his palm into what turns out to be a jagged piece of glass, and he winces as he retracts his hand, knowing the cut must be pretty deep. Desperate, he rounds the gap and sits, using his feet to push off the rubble that is crowding the mouth of the hole.

Ohno feels a sob catch in his chest as he sees Nino staring up at the sky.

As he peers into the recess and his eyes get used to the darkness, Ohno realises Nino is only alive because the rods he’s trapped on have been bent by the rubble that fell on him, creating a cage-like structure that’s prevented him from getting crushed.

Ohno reaches his good hand through the space between two rods and into the crevice, about to press his fingers against Nino’s neck to feel for a pulse, when Nino blinks very, very slowly.

“Nino. Nino, I’m here,” Ohno chokes out, and he’s not even sure Nino can understand him, his words mangling as they mix with his tears. He can make out the rest of Nino’s body now, his legs crushed under a large slab of concrete. There’s no way Ohno can move that, not alone.

Nino’s lips move, but the sound he’s making is too faint to be heard. Ohno lies on his belly so he can put his face as close to Nino’s as he can.

“Eri…”

Ohno tries to recall who Eri is. He hasn’t paid a lot of attention to the names of Nino’s friends. He wonders if it’s Arimura, but if it were, Nino wouldn’t call her by her first name. Ohno’s pretty sure it isn’t any of Nino’s exes; they’d all been men.

Nino makes a rasping sound and Ohno turns back to him.

Tears are streaming from the corners of Nino’s eyes. His lips are still moving, and Ohno bites back a sob, shakes his head to get Nino to stop.

“I know you don’t know me. But I couldn’t let you die alone.”

There is a roaring from above, and Ohno looks up to see a totem pole-like structure spiralling up from beneath them, spraying water everywhere.

“Aliens are in that thing,” Ohno breathes, staring.

He looks back down at Nino, who’s looking up at the object as well.

Then, very slowly, Nino’s eyes move to fix on Ohno’s face. Ohno reaches out to touch Nino’s cheek with his trembling fingers.

Nino barely manages a whisper. “Eri.”

“I’ll find her,” says Ohno, voice cracking as he sees Nino’s eyelids start to lower. “I promise.”

Nino’s eyes shut. His head tilts ever so slightly, making his tear tracks glisten in the light of the waxing moon.

Ohno lets out a violent sob. He didn’t get to tell Nino he loved him, didn’t get to say goodbye properly. He won’t have another chance—he can’t risk having another Ohno Satoshi appearing beside his current self; who knows what he’s done to history now that he’s materialised in the past?

Inhuman screeches pierce the night air as windows in the towering structure open, and Ohno gives Nino one last lingering look before stepping away.

***

The first thing Ohno does when he gets home is to treat the gash on his palm, sucking air through his teeth as he runs water over the cut. The bleeding’s stopped; it’s not as bad as he thought it was. It doesn’t look like he’ll need any stitches, at least.

Ohno catches his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

He hasn’t brought back any of the dirt that stuck onto his clothes when he was climbing the wreckage, but there are holes in his hoodie and sweatpants where sharper edges had snagged the fabric. The rims of his eyes are red, and he can see where the tears have dried on his cheeks.

He looks down at his wound, feels the pain, raw and real and reminding.

He’s gone and did it. Gone and spent Nino’s last day with him, stayed by his side as he died.

Who on earth was Eri?

As he bandages his hand, Ohno’s mind is in overdrive. He knows he’s tired—he spent a record 91 minutes in the past tonight—but he’s got so many things to do. He needs to find out who Eri is, for one, find out if any of Nino’s students survived. Hell, he even wants to know if Captain made it.

Perhaps there’ll be clues to all this as Ohno draws more pictures with ghost-Nino.

Feeling hopeful, Ohno walks into his craft space and seats himself in front of the sketchbook that’s lying on his desk. He’ll have to draw as best as he can with his bandaged hand.

The sketchbook is opened up to a blank page, and Ohno is about to pick up his box of coloured pencils and open up his mind to the ghost when something strikes him as odd, and he stills.

He’d left the sketchbook open to the last picture they’d drawn, not to a blank page.

Ohno leafs through the pages, blood chilling.

Except for the portrait he’d drawn of Nino, all the pictures have disappeared.


	4. Chapter 4

_Ten weeks later—_

They’ve been worried about him, Jun and Sho and Aiba, and Ohno feels kind of bad about it when Jun goes out of his way to pull off what has never been achieved in the history of their department—a day off for Team B, all three of them at the same time.

In a way, they’ve earned it. They’d worked very hard on the Kataumi case: taking Team A back into the past to corroborate the evidence, solving the case, incriminating the masterminds, assisting in the trial.

Chief Inspector Kimura also granted them leave because of Ohno, who’s been working like a fiend the past couple of months. He’s been playing a bigger part in planning, especially the planning of routes they take when they have to travel through Old Kujukuri Town.

Actually—and his partners have probably picked up on this—it’s because he’s avoiding certain areas.

Areas where he might bump into Nino.

“Thanks for negotiating for the day off, but must we really spend it together?” asks Ohno as he goes down the stairs of his apartment building with Jun, who’s come to meet him.

Jun swivels his head to look at him. “That was kind of the point, yes. Sho-kun and I thought it’d be good for you to go out. Spend some leisure time with, well. With real people. No offence.”

“None taken.” Ohno shrugs. “I’m fine, though. Really.”

“I know you are,” says Jun. “That’s why I’m worried.”

Ohno frowns. “Why?”

They reach the first storey and head to the porch. Jun cranes his neck, looks up and down the street. No sign of Sho and Aiba yet.

Jun turns to Ohno, looks at him for a moment.

“Do you remember Okada?”

“Do I remember—Matsujun, he was my shift partner for two years.”

“Yeah, well. When he got transferred to the Chiba HQ, you hardly spoke to him again, even when you met in casual situations. It’s like you barely knew him.”

“He got promoted, Matsujun. Became important really early.” Ohno scuffs his shoe against the step he’s standing on. “Anyway, he was just my shift partner. We had a working relationship, nothing more.”

“Oh, that’s complete bull. You were close, don’t think I didn’t notice. You’d go fishing together on your days off and all.” Jun’s expression softens. “When people you like leave you, you don’t come to terms with it. You just cut off whatever’s hurting you, bury it forever and move on.”

“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not. It’s just hard to watch you stop doing what you love. You haven’t gone fishing in years, have you?”

“It takes up too much time,” mumbles Ohno. It’s not a complete lie. Ohno has always told himself he’ll go back to fishing someday.

Jun ignores his comment. “You’re doing the same thing with your art. You ghost left you; why exactly, you and Aiba-kun won’t say; and suddenly you’re selling unopened canisters of glue to that guy in Narcotics—don’t get me started on the irony—and giving all your crayons to the cafeteria lady’s kid. We’re on to you, you know.”

Ohno puts his hands in his pockets, hunches. “I’m not giving up art. I’m just taking a break. You might even say I’ve hit a slump.”

“I know,” says Jun patiently, and Ohno wants to strangle him for being so _correct_.

“How’s going to the Reishinten together related to all this, then?”

“It was the obvious choice—Sho-kun and I really like exhibitions, you do art, and Aiba-kun apparently goes every time.” Jun waves to Sho and Aiba as their car rolls up. “And it’s always great observing Sho-kun in boyfriend mode. He’s so chivalrous it’s actually funny.”

They get in the car, exchange greetings. Sho is at the wheel, and he makes sure everyone is wearing their seatbelt before releasing the handbrake. (Ohno realises Jun is right—there’s a certain hilarity to Sho’s chivalry.)

“Third and fourth wheel reporting for duty,” Jun deadpans as the car moves off.

Aiba laughs and twists around to look at Ohno. He gives Ohno a warm smile.

“Hey, Ohno-san. It’s been too long.”

“Yeah. It’s been hectic at the station.”

“How’s the hand?”

Ohno splays his palm towards Aiba. “Good as new.”

Sho throws them a quick glance. “You guys still using ‘-san’ with each other?”

“What do you suggest?”

“‘-chan’ is really good at bridging distance.”

Ohno hesitates for a moment before saying:

“Aiba-chan?”

“Oh-chan…?”

“Go out with each other already!” says Sho enthusiastically, making Ohno laugh.

He catches Jun smiling beatifically at him.

“What?” asks Ohno.

“You’re laughing.”

“Yeah. I’m only human.”

“Not this human. Not in a while,” says Jun cryptically.

Ohno tries to come up with a retort, but he’s too slow—Jun pulls his cap over his face and proceeds to nap.

 

***

Sho drops them off at the promenade and leaves to find parking on his own; Aiba stays with Ohno while Jun joins the monstrous line for tickets. (He volunteered; he’d been the one to suggest coming here, after all.)

“How are you holding up?” asks Aiba once they’re alone.

Ohno is relieved that Aiba is cutting straight to the chase and isn’t making this awkward, what with the state Ohno had been in when they’d last met.

“I’m good, I think.” Ohno takes a deep breath. “Haven’t thanked you properly for coming over to my place at three in the morning.”

“Oh-chan…” says Aiba, shaking his head and squeezing Ohno’s arm.

Ohno’s glad Sho made them change the way they address each other. He feels that his closeness to Aiba is a lot more complete, somehow.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the science behind what happened. Did some research.”

Ohno feels nervous all of a sudden. Aiba’s the only one who knows Ohno went back to the past to be with Nino when he died.

But Aiba doesn’t know about the previous trips, or the part where Ohno’s deeply in love with Nino. Aiba thinks Ohno was motivated by a strong sense of attachment and extravagant pity—Ohno hasn’t tried to convince him otherwise.

“I was sort of hoping it would revolutionise the ghost-hunting world, give us a less extreme alternative to destroying souls,” continues Aiba apologetically, “but I’m afraid what happened between you and your ghost was a one-off thing.”

“But you’re sure he left because he found peace?” says Ohno, and there’s this weird mix of emotions inside him as he speaks: vexation, joy, relief, longing.

“I truly believe that.” Aiba purses his lips, looking thoughtful.

“It’s probably a lot more complicated than this, but I think it’s because you didn’t try to prevent him from dying. You helped your ghost face death. You helped him let go.”

“I helped him let go.” Ohno repeats it like it’ll make him feel better. It doesn’t. He looks up at Aiba.

“So _I_ let him go?”

Aiba studies Ohno’s expression.

“You seem upset.”

Ohno doesn’t answer immediately. His diverts his eyes and they settle on Jun, still halfway down the line. He’s absorbed in a book, obviously prepared for the wait.

“Oh-chan, I understand if you miss him, but I thought you wanted him to rest in peace?” Aiba touches Ohno’s arm.

Ohno isn’t sure if he wants to talk about it.

He’s happy that Nino’s ghost has been set free, relieved that he can spend time creating what he wants to create (if he ever gets out of his slump), but a part of him feels abandoned, even though he knows what’d been in his house was Nino’s ghost, not the Nino he fell in love with.

He isn’t frustrated that he can’t gather clues about that mysterious Eri from the ghost, no—it doesn’t have to be from pictures; he could always travel back in time, visit Nino’s past, track her down—he’s frustrated because he left Nino dead with merely the promise to find her.

There’d been no epic declaration of love, no confessions of who he was to Nino, and Ohno feels so stupid—he blew his one chance to tell Nino about himself, that he’s always been there, will always love him.

But then what? What was Ohno expecting, really? For Nino to say he loves Ohno back?

Perhaps.

It makes Ohno feel even more foolish. Nino was barely breathing when Ohno found him in the rubble.

But all these feelings are why Ohno hasn’t gone back to visit Nino since.

It’s ridiculous, really—they don’t owe each other anything. No matter if Ohno had risked life and limb to be by Nino’s side when he died. No, that was all Ohno. It was entirely his choice.

There’s a gasp from Aiba, and Ohno finds himself being pulled slowly into a hug.

“Oh, God. Yes, that must be it… I thought it was just because you and the ghost—the dopamine spikes, I thought you missed it. And you’re such a kind person, but no, you can _time travel_. Oh-chan, I’m _so_ sorry.”

Despite the incoherence Ohno knows Aiba’s got most of it figured out. Ohno just stands there, and it should be awkward, standing in a sunny spot of a crowded promenade being hugged by Aiba like that, but all Ohno feels is gratitude.

Perhaps someday he’ll find the courage to tell his friends everything.

Another pair of arms circle them, and Ohno has to laugh when Sho says:

“Nope, totally not weird finding my boyfriend hugging my best friend in the middle of the boardwalk.”

“It’s not like that,” Aiba starts protesting, breaking the circle, but Ohno very calmly takes Aiba’s shoulders and pulls him away from Sho.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you from now on,” Ohno tells Aiba very seriously, and Sho laughs so hard he doubles over.

 

***

The Reishinten is a contemporary art exhibition that originated in a movement which served to commemorate the artists and art that were lost in the Battle of Kujukuri, before it expanded to include those who had perished with the disasters that had struck Japan prior. It’s held biannually—first in Kujukuri, to coincide with the anniversary of the attack, before it travels to a major city outside of Kanto.

Ever since he heard of it Ohno has thought of participating in the exhibition, but none of his creations have ended up being inspired by the dead artists, their art, or any of the disasters and their victims.

Then again, that isn’t entirely true. That portrait he drew of Nino could count.

There’s an uncomfortable squeezing in Ohno chest; he knows he shouldn’t have let his mind wander to that.

“Satoshi-kun?” says Sho, and Ohno realises the other three have got their fists at the ready.

“What’re we doing?”

“We’re going to janken to see who gets to pick the first exhibit.”

Ohno sticks out his fist, and they all make the call.

Sho wins. He chooses the Installation Art course, and they spend an hour in and out of galleries that dot the waterfront. A guide comments on how lucky they are; the rainy season has just let up and the outdoor installations are finally out from under the makeshift tents.

Aiba gets to go next. He picks a film that makes all of them cry—it’s a documentary about six women, all who lost their families in different catastrophes when they were still children. Aiba blubbers an apology afterward, saying he couldn’t tell _Dancing in the Lilac Sea_ was going to be a film about orphans.

There is a section dedicated to art created by Priors, and since it was both Ohno’s and Jun’s first choice they decide to go there next. It’s housed in a sleek, dome-shaped building that displays the main exhibits, and the guide that greets them is surprised and very pleased to learn that they have not one, but two Priors in their group. When they ask about it, she says she isn’t a Prior, but she’s married to one.

They’re told that not all of the exhibits are by living Priors—some of the art has actually been created by Priors who died in the disasters, and their creations were either miraculously preserved or contributed by family members, or galleries that were in possession of their work.

“The majority of Priors who lived in the nineties and the first decade of this century weren’t very forthcoming about their identity,” their guide says, bringing them to the first set of exhibits in the collection. “There were many reasons why this happened—familial pressure, lack of public awareness, poor relations between Prior and non-Prior organisations. It’s no exaggeration to say that twenty years ago an exhibition like this, of Prior art, would never be possible.”

They stop at a sculpture created by a famous artist in his sixties who’d only recently admitted that he was a Prior. It’d been on the news, Ohno remembers.

Sho is completely enchanted by the piece, and very softly he says:

“For the oppressed to share a part of themselves like this with us, so bravely…”

“It didn’t come easy,” says Aiba, and he and Sho look at each other with such meaning that Ohno quickly looks away, feeling like he’s just witnessed a rather private moment. He catches Jun’s eye, knows Jun had seen it too, and the two of them hurry after their guide, stifling giggles.

They are brought through the recommended course. It’s a truly eclectic collection: paintings, photography, calligraphy, electronic art—all made by Priors.

Floor to ceiling panels precede the artwork, a large black-and-white portrait of the creator on each one. A short profile is printed under their name, listing their age, where they’re from, their Prior ability. Their guide explains the significance of this: Priors don’t have to hide what they can do anymore; it’s now something to be proud of.

Ohno is impressed by everything he sees, tries to keep track of his favourites. As they move on to the last room he thinks about the peacock that’d been made with sea glass and wonders if he could make something similar. Perhaps on his next day off he should go down to the beach with a bucket, see what he can find—

Ohno stops in his tracks as his gaze falls upon a photograph mounted on the other side of the room.

It’s Nino.

“This year we’ve also included a selection of literary works,” says the guide, going on to introduce the exhibit closest to them, and Ohno feels like the wind has been knocked out of his lungs as he struggles to compute the new information.

Nino’s portrait is on the wall. He’s a creator.

Nino was a Prior?

Ohno finds himself weaving through groups of visitors, crossing the room, eyes locked onto the panel.

He stops in front of the portrait, reads the profile.

_Ninomiya Kazunari. 1988.06.17—2017.08.05. Born in Koriyama, Fukushima. Empath._

Ohno feels faint.

“What’s the matter?” Ohno feels a hand on the small of his back. It’s Aiba, and he suddenly looks alarmed.

“You’ve gone really pale, Oh-chan.”

Sho and Jun come over as well, looking concerned. They’ve excused themselves from the guide.

Ohno turns away from the portrait, grabs Aiba’s arm for support.

“It’s him.”

A beat. “The ghost?” Aiba whispers, eyes wide.

“Your ghost was a Prior?” Sho gapes at Ohno, takes in the expression on his face. “Wait, you just found out?”

Ohno nods, trying to regain composure. He watches his friends look up and down the panel, scanning it.

“Aiba-kun, what’s an empath?” asks Jun.

“Someone who can interpret feelings.”

“Like a mind-reader?”

“Something like that, but with emotions. Just emotions.”

Nino had always been very good with reading the atmosphere, Ohno realises. Always the one to break the ice, always understanding, compassionate, amicable.

_He was an empath._

“ _Hello, I’m Ninomiya. Nice to meet you. Please take care of me_ ,” says Nino’s voice, and Ohno looks up, startled.

The sound has come from a grainy projection, and Ohno blinks back tears as he sees Nino, replicated in pixels, adjusting the angle of the microphone on his headset.

A second voice comes on.

“ _You may make your pitch whenever you’re ready, Ninomiya-san._ ”

Nino gives a winning smile. “ _My story is a modern fantasy, a cross-dimensional hide-and-seek romance. Boy and Girl start communicating when Girl discovers she can glimpse into Boy’s world for six seconds every time she passes through a door. They decide they’re each other’s one true love, but discover they’re literally from different worlds. Kinda based on my life, not gonna lie._ ”

The interviewer laughs. “ _Do you have a title?_ ”

Nino nods.

“ _Yes. It’s called Ellie and Me_.”

Ohno freezes as the video clip fades to black.

Ellie.

It strikes Ohno that Nino might have said ‘Ellie’ that night. Not ‘Eri’.

But why?

“Excuse me,” comes a voice that sounds strangely familiar, and Ohno turns his head.

It’s Nino’s mother.

She’s a lot older now, a lot thinner, and she’s smiling at them. At him.

“I heard from Ishihara-san that some young men are very captivated by this exhibit. You all look too young to be his friends; were you by any chance his students?”

Mrs Ninomiya is dressed in a business suit, a band around her arm imprinted with the Reishinten logo—she’s a member of the staff.

“No.” Sho speaks up after the prolonged pause, glancing at Ohno. “We just - we just found him rather familiar.”

“Ah.” Mrs Ninomiya gives them a knowing smile. “He’s got this archetypal Japanese face, I understand.”

They hesitate to laugh at her joke.

“Sorry, I know it’s not nice to make fun of the dead. But I’m actually his mother, so I have special rights.”

They laugh now, save Ohno, whose throat has gone completely dry. He doesn’t quite know how to act now that he’s actually getting acquainted with Nino’s mother.

“Once again, my name is Ninomiya, and I help to manage this exhibit. You’re the first ones who’ve shown such interest—it’s piqued my curiosity about you boys.”

They angle their heads, and Jun and Aiba remove their caps.

“Please take care of us.”

Mrs Ninomiya beckons them to the projection of the book that’s rotating in a glass case.

“This is the digital version. There’s obviously no data in it right now; the release date is November third so we’re guarding all the spoilers. There’s going to be a print version too, but I know you young people don’t go for those.”

The video of Nino making his pitch plays again, and Mrs Ninomiya looks up to watch it.

“You know, I can’t believe the novel is finally published,” she says wistfully. “His agent found me on the internet ten years ago, asked if I was open to negotiation. I didn’t even know I held the rights to his book.”

Aiba cups his hand around Ohno’s ear. “Did you know about the novel?”

Ohno nods.

“Why did it take so long to publish?” Jun asks Mrs Ninomiya.

“Because of me, mostly.” Mrs Ninomiya turns away from the projection to look at them. “Something was always holding me back. It was as if Kazu was telling me he wasn’t ready. But one day, about three months ago, I had a dream of Kazu. I woke up thinking: ‘That was a sign. Today will be the day I call the agent.’ I felt so free.”

She pauses, and Nino’s recorded voice coincidentally fills the silence, reciting the title of the novel.

“Why did he call it _Ellie and Me_?” asks Sho, voicing the question Ohno has been longing to ask.

Mrs Ninomiya hums. “Well, the relationship between the boy and girl in the story really fit the lyrics of this old song… I’m sure you boys don’t know it, it’s from the eighties or something—”

“ _Itoshi no Ellie_?” asks Ohno softly.

“Why, yes.” Mrs Ninomiya breaks into a smile. “I’m surprised you've heard of it.”

Ohno experiences a rush of emotion as he remembers Nino’s breathy rendition of the chorus. “I like old songs,” is all he can say before he feels like he’s going to cry—it’s _Nino’s mum_ —so he stops talking.

The video starts looping again, and this time they all pause to listen.

“‘Kinda based on my life’, he said,” Mrs Ninomiya chuckles, and then she starts blinking rapidly, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Oh dear. I’m sorry, boys.” Mrs Ninomiya shakes her head, dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief she pulls out of her pocket. “I just remembered something from a conversation on the day he died. Do forgive me for being so emotional.”

“Please, Ninomiya-san. Don’t apologise.”

Mrs Ninomiya composes herself, exhales. “You know, while this is fiction, he actually drew from his experience with this - this _presence_ he said was in his life. He knew it was there because he could sense it with his empathy.

“He said it felt like love.”

Ohno excuses himself, fleeing the room as his tears threaten to fall.

 

***

It’s Sho who finds him huddled inside a pipe-like fixture attached high up on one of the installation art exhibits they’d all taken turns to climb earlier, and Sho wheezes as he clings onto the edge of the cylinder, complaining how he kept missing the grip elevator and that he really needs to start training for their next fitness test.

Ohno just stares at him.

“Feeling dead inside?” asks Sho.

Ohno nods.

Sighing, Sho climbs into the hole and sits beside him. He pulls out his phone, texts Jun and Aiba that he’s found Ohno.

They’re very different people, Ohno and Sho. Their family backgrounds, hobbies, tastes in men—heaven and earth. But they’d been roommates for years, this unlikely pair—first in the academy dorms, then sharing an apartment for a few years after graduation. That was the start of ‘Satoshi-kun’ and ‘Sho-chan’; they even wrote a theme song.

Sho is Ohno’s best friend.

“I’m in love with my ghost,” says Ohno quietly.

“We kind of figured that out. You threw yourself into your work after it left, remember?”

“That was the ghost-ghost. I’m talking about the human version. I travelled back in time to meet him.”

Sho’s mouth falls open.

Ohno ends up telling Sho everything, every detail of his arguably sordid escapade except the bit about Eri—those were Nino’s last words, and they’d been for Ohno and Ohno only, even if it’d been someone else’s name.

Ohno’s recount takes the better part of an hour and they have to fend off some curious children who want their turn in the pipe, but Ohno manages to finish his story.

He waits for a response from Sho, who’s studying his own knees very seriously.

“You could lodge a complaint against me for what I did, I know,” says Ohno. “Spying on people in their homes even though I know better, being a cop.”

Sho looks up in surprise. “I wasn’t thinking of that.” He holds Ohno’s hand, gives him an earnest look.

“I was thinking about how he might have loved you back.”

Ohno squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t say that, Sho-chan. Please don’t say that.”

“What, you don’t think so? His mother said he could sense your love.”

“I _want_ to think so. That’s the problem. I’ve wanted it since I wanted him. It doesn’t make me think straight.”

“Satoshi-kun. I really don’t think love works like that.”

There’s a scrabbling sound from underneath them and they get ready to reject another kid, but it turns out to be Aiba.

He asks if they’re ready to go, and they all climb upwards to get to a flight of stairs that lead down the enormous art piece. When they emerge back on ground level, they find that Jun is nowhere in sight.

“He said he’ll be back soon,” Aiba tells them before he turns to Ohno. He opens his mouth to say something, then stops himself when he remembers Sho is around.

“He’s told me everything,” Sho says simply, and Aiba slumps in relief before snapping his attention back to Ohno.

“We went back to speak to Ninomiya-san after Sho said he found you. She was very kind to tell us a lot of things about the origins of the book, but I think you should learn of them by yourself.”

Aiba fishes in his pocket and produces a square of memo-film.

“Matsumoto-kun said it helps if you have a clear idea when events took place, so we took notes.”

Ohno receives the film, looks down at it. He’s pretty sure his friends are encouraging him to go back to the past to stalk Nino again.

He did not see this coming.

They see Jun approaching, and when he joins their circle they notice the paper bag in his hand. He holds it out to Ohno.

“Ninomiya-san wanted you to have this. She had a copy in her car. It’s the original version, printed out from her computer.”

Ohno doesn’t have to look into the bag to know what it is.

Aiba takes a deep breath. “I told Ninomiya-san about your haunting. I had my reasons: I thought she should know her son is at peace, and the day that she felt the book was ready to be published happened at the same time the ghost left your apartment. I don’t think that’s coincidence.

“Sorry for breaking the confidentiality I promised you, but she’s the family of the deceased, and we usually do release information like this to them.”

Ohno understands, but he still feels uncomfortable. “You didn’t tell her about how I—?”

“I didn’t mention your powers.” Aiba is quick to answer. “I just told her you could communicate with the ghost.”

Ohno then turns to Jun, holding up the bag. “And she said this was for me? Specifically?”

“Yes.”

Ohno is dumbfounded. “Why?”

“You’re the reason her son is resting in peace. At least that’s how Aiba-kun explained it.” Jun fidgets, looking guilty. “Also I might have hinted to her that you were the presence.”

Ohno gawks at Jun. “But I never even told—how did _you_ find out?”

“Oh-chan.” Jun puts his hand on Ohno’s shoulder. “Don’t forget what I do for a living.”

“Don’t you guys do the same thing for a living?” Ohno hears Aiba whisper to Sho.

“Matsujun’s in a different class,” Sho whispers back. “He’s a superstar.”

“I notice things,” Jun goes on to say. “I even remember the guy.”

Ohno has no words.

“We’ve seen him before, when we were investigating the Kataumi case. I even avoided him in the street once, he almost hit me with his umbrella.”

“No, he didn’t,” Sho interjects. “You were in _ghost mode_.”

Aiba takes a step back. “Uh, guys? I don’t think civilians are supposed to be listening in to this police talk?”

Jun waves at Aiba and Sho dismissively, still keeping his attention on Ohno. “And the way you acted that one time, when we were on the trains the whole day trying to get a hold of that suspect? You were being so weird, and when we went back to tail him again I realised the carriage we walked through had been a scene in your sketchbook.

“Then, when you started learning Fukushima-ben during lunch, I knew something was up. It was around that time you started being sloppy with your work, so after a while I guessed you must’ve been travelling in your spare time.”

Ohno is quite horrified. Jun knows a lot more than he’s let on, and he’s brought a whole new level to curiosity.

“And, uh, this morning I might have flipped through your sketchbook when I waited for you to get ready, and there was nothing in it except a portrait of that guy, so, you know. When I saw the exhibit, everything fit.

“You left clues everywhere.”

Now all of them are looking at Jun.

Jun juts out his lip, frowns. “What?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” they all say, averting their eyes, and it really does make Ohno feel better that he isn’t the only prying one.

 

***

It’s been a day of so many revelations, and Ohno knows he’s at the homestretch.

He sits on the floor of his craft space, pulls out the manuscript from the paper bag, peels off the memo-film he’s stuck on the cover page.

Ohno activates the note reader on his phone and places the film on the screen. He watches the film fade away as his phone receives its data.

Ohno taps the downloaded file open.

 _Morning of attack_ , are the first words on the note. Aiba had been in a hurry, Ohno can tell, but his handwriting is legible nonetheless.

_Walking the dog, park near apartment? 8-ish?_

_Some sort of shelter overlooking the water._

There are other scribbles on the note, but these are the ones Aiba has highlighted in green, and Ohno realises he knows exactly where he has to go.

 

***

Ohno waits by the petunias.

They’re coming towards him, led by Captain. Mrs Ninomiya laughs as Captain leaps after a butterfly—so that’s what he’s chasing—and Nino is yelling something about how the butterfly is innocent.

It’s been a long time since he’s seen Nino like this.

“Come on, Kaa-san. He’s been walking for a while, let’s take a rest.” Nino takes hold of Captain’s leash, bringing him to heel.

Captain is obedient all the way to the gazebo that overlooks the water, and Mrs Ninomiya lets him have a treat, prompting Nino to give Captain a drink of water from his doggy bottle after.

Then Nino starts humming a song.

“Is that _Itoshi no Ellie_?” his mother asks.

“Yep. I played it the whole time I was writing the novel. I thought it really fit Yuji and Ellie’s story.”

Mrs Ninomiya stares at her son thoughtfully. “What made you write in the first place? I don’t remember you being very big on creative writing.”

There’s a drawn out pause.

“Kaa-san, this is going to be kind of strange…” Nino trails off, looking apprehensive.

“Whenever you set the conversation up like that, I always think: ‘I have _two_ Prior children, and there’s no way Kazu can top his sister when it comes to strange.’”

Nino just cracks up at this, and Ohno is just _floored_ to learn that Nino’s sister is a Prior too.

He wonders why he’s never heard conversations like these before, then he realises the majority of his trips have been to when Nino started living on his own. And despite having visited Nino across two decades of his life, Ohno has actually only stayed for minutes each time. There’s a lot he’s yet to cover, a lot he’s skipped over.

“Okay. You know how in the story, Ellie can see Yuji for only a few seconds at a time? There’s been something like that in my life.”

“You can see someone in another dimension?”

“No. I think someone can see me.” Nino crosses his arms, leans back against a post. “I can’t see him, but I can sense his emotions. Not all the time, though. It’s like an intermittent radio signal. It’s usually faint, but sometimes it gets quite clear—though it never has the clarity of actual, real-life readings. And… I’m pretty sure it’s a guy.”

Mrs Ninomiya freezes. “Kazu, don’t tell me it’s Ojii-chan’s ghost?”

“No. I don’t think he’s a ghost, and he’s definitely not Ojii-chan,” Nino laughs. “He was around even when Ojii-chan was alive.

“I didn’t understand all the emotions when I was a kid. I hardly noticed it at first—I was too busy processing the emotions of every single kid around me, then struggling with the bullying crap—but as I grew older, I realised there was this - this _recurring_ emotional imprint, and it meant something.

“When I was younger he’d show up when I was going through a particularly trying life event or celebrating something important, but in the past few years there hasn’t been a pattern to his appearances.

“The feelings, though—I’ve picked up on joy, the vicarious kind, which he felt because _I_ was happy; I’ve sensed what he finds funny because he’d react to my jokes. Some of the clearer emotions I’ve read from him are jealousy and lust. Negative emotions hit me a lot stronger than the others.”

Ohno feels his cheeks and ears turn impossibly hot.

“God, the things I tell my mother.” Nino is laughing now, rubbing his face in embarrassment.

“You’re talking about it like it’s a real person,” says Mrs Ninomiya.

“That’s because he is.” Nino doesn’t hesitate with his reply.

Ohno closes his eyes, an overwhelming tenderness washing over him.

“You’re starting to give your sister a run for her money, let me tell you that.” Mrs Ninomiya rubs her hands up and down her arms, making a face that’s part-grimace, part-smile.

“Trust me, I’ve struggled with this.” Nino laughs. “When I finally realised what it was I was a little freaked out, but eventually I decided that if I can accept the Prior and gay parts of myself, why not this guy’s heart?”

“…Have you tried communicating with him?”

“He’s always nervous about being found out, so I’ve never called to him.” Nino shakes his head. “I was afraid he’d run away. He’s run before.”

All those times Ohno thought Nino was looking at him—he hadn’t been imagining it.

“One thing has always remained a mystery to me. He’s so… _sad_. Whenever I realise he’s around, I sense this undercurrent of pain. It’s been the same pain for twenty years. I can’t help but feel I’m the cause of it.”

 _Yeah, because you die_ , Ohno thinks.

“It’s hard to explain, but that feeling is always so raw and real, I know he’s not a part of my imagination. It doesn’t _belong_ , and—this is going to sound crazy—in the past few years I’ve found myself wanting to make him feel better.” Nino leans out past the rail, looking out at the water.

“Can’t fight love, I guess,” he says softly.

Ohno walks up to Nino’s side, reaches out to brush his fingertips on Nino’s cheek.

“Don’t you believe in true love, Kaa-san?” Nino says suddenly with this _grin_ on his face, turning to his mother. He looks so goofy it makes Ohno’s heart ache.

“Well, if I did I wouldn’t have married Tou-chan.”

“You’re horrible, Kaa-san!” Nino laughs.

“You think this is true love, then?”

“Honestly? I don’t even know if there’s such a thing. I was just teasing you.” Nino pauses to think. “But he loves me in a way so profound that no one I’ve ever been with matches up. Once you encounter a love like that, it’s hard to settle for less.”

Mrs Ninomiya give a slow nod, then frowns. “So it’s been that one guy since childhood?”

“Yes. You know emotional imprints are unique.”

Mrs Ninomiya stares at Nino for a beat. “Where’s he _from_? How did he even find you?” she asks, in awe.

“I’ve tried looking for him, but he doesn’t seem to be in any of my circles. Maybe he exists in a different place—dimension, world, time, planet—I don’t know.” Nino shrugs.

“Wait. In your story, the boy and girl get together. Are you hoping—?” Mrs Ninomiya eyes Nino, her brow furrowed.

Nino gives his mother a wistful smile.

“If I ever find him. Truth is, he’s not been visiting for a really long time.” Nino’s smile turns wry, and he curls his fingers around his face, sighing into his palm.

“I’m pretty sure it was something I did. He’s gone off the radar like this before; the last time he stayed away this long was when I was in university—” Nino stops, realising this is his mother he’s talking to. His neck has flushed red. Ohno knows which memory he’s calling up.

“Anyway,” Nino clears his throat, “I imagined what it’d be like to find him, and ended up writing the story.”

“So… The girl in the book—Ellie—that’s him?”

“My version of him, yes.”

Ohno bites down on his trembling lip, can’t stop the tears from falling.

“I don’t think the world is ready for gay fiction written by a Prior just yet, so he gets to be a girl for now,” says Nino, grinning. He turns around, calls for Captain. Their break is over.

They take a step out of the gazebo. Mrs Ninomiya stops abruptly, puts a hand on Nino’s arm.

“I wonder if he’s here today?”

Nino looks at his mother in surprise, like he’s not considered that Ohno could be around. He pulls lightly on Captain’s leash, signals for him to wait, scans the area.

Ohno doesn’t find Nino’s reaction out of the ordinary. From Nino’s perspective, Ohno hasn’t visited in close to a year.

“You know what, Kaa-san?” Nino says after a while, looking at the spot where Ohno is standing. “I think he just might be.”

Mrs Ninomiya inhales, puts a hand on Nino’s back, looks in the same direction he’s looking.

“Hello, Ellie,” she breathes.

“Welcome back.” Nino smiles at Ohno.

 

***

That night, after Ohno cries himself silly on the craft space floor, he settles into bed and picks up the manuscript, wondering if his swollen eyes can read.

Holding his breath, he opens it up to the first page.

Nino has this way of writing that engulfs him, captures him in his world, makes him laugh, then rents his heart into pieces before putting it back together again.

It’s really not very different from the Nino he knows.

Yuji and Ellie, the protagonists, have six-second windows to communicate with each other; Ellie controls when they meet because their connection is only established whenever she passes through doors. This frustrates Yuji since he can’t see her whenever he wants. One day, Yuji finds the portal that links their worlds and travels to meet Ellie in person. He eventually decides to leave his world to be with Ellie.

The lyrics of _Itoshi no Ellie_ are used throughout the story, and Ohno realises how they not only parallel Yuji and Ellie’s story, but Ohno and Nino’s as well.

It gives Ohno some insight into how Nino felt about his visits. He’s never really thought about Nino’s side of things. Ohno’s always believed his affection was one-way, refused to read the signs.

Now, looking back, he realises Nino had tried. He’d searched for Ohno when he sensed him; he’d wanted to meet him. Nino had even sung to him. He’d known how Ohno felt all along, even when Ohno didn’t know it himself.

And when Ohno turned off the concealment to get to Nino, trapped in the rubble, Nino had recognised him. Nino wasn’t asking Ohno to _find_ Ellie—he’d been _calling him_ , and Ohno was there to answer, to be his Ellie, to help him go in peace.

Ohno was there when Nino needed him most.

For a while, Ohno had been discouraged by how time couldn’t seem to defeat death. It felt even more permanent when Nino’s ghost left, taking all their drawn memories with him. But now he understands.

Love is the force that is greater than time, than death.

It doesn’t matter that Ohno didn’t get to say goodbye with a confession of love. It doesn’t matter that they’ll never have romance. It doesn’t matter that he won’t have a future with Nino in it.

Because what matters is that Nino loves him back.

**fin.**

***

_**Itoshi no Ellie** by Southern All Stars_

_I’ve made you cry_  
_I’ve even been aloof to you_  
_If only we could stay close to each other_  
_To me, you’re my last lady_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_

_If we awaken yet our eyes don’t meet_  
_If we gather only the memories we can’t speak of_  
_If we’re rendered at a loss for words_  
_That’s the end of our romance, isn’t it_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_

_Smile more baby_  
_You’re innocently on my mind_  
_Show yourself more baby_  
_I’m wonderfully in your sight_  
_The days that make you cry will fade away_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_

_Even if you go someplace faraway_  
_I want to stay this way_  
_Not forgetting all that you’ve done for me_  
_It’s also easier for you this way, isn’t it_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_

_Smile more baby_  
_You’re innocently on my mind_  
_Show yourself more baby_  
_I’m wonderfully in your sight_  
_As long as I own this dreary heart_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_

_Smile more baby_  
_You’re innocently on my mind_  
_Show yourself more baby_  
_I’m wonderfully in your sight_  
_And after I make you cry_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_  
_Ellie, my love so sweet_

_Ellie, my love_  
_Ellie_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the [Afterword](http://oviparousfic.livejournal.com/38045.html).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [When](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9041054) by [oviparous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oviparous/pseuds/oviparous)




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